(Credits: Netflix)

Virgin River recently returned to Netflix with its seventh season, but the frenzy feels just like the first.

The season kicks off at Founder’s Day when bar owner Jack Sheridan and chef Preacher dissolve their existing partnership so that Preacher can start a restaurant of his own. Meanwhile, Doc ultimately decides to collaborate with Grace Valley’s well-funded hospital to open a local clinic in Virgin River to ensure residents receive better healthcare.

While the seventh season of Virgin River also saw Lizzi and Denny giving birth to their daughter, Brie and Mike breaking up, and Brie and Brady getting back together, we know that all sights are actually set on the newlyweds, Mel and Jack.

So, the burning question is: do Mel and Jack have a baby, especially after all that past trauma surrounding the miscarriage?

Do Mel and Jack welcome a baby in Virgin River?

In Virgin River season seven, Mel and Jack are busy getting their new farm up and running while finding time to sneak in a romantic Mexican honeymoon before finally becoming the adoptive parents to a son born with a heart condition. Marley is the birth mother of their son, and if we remember correctly, in the sixth season, Mel had been treating the young mother-to-be who had already planned to put up the child for adoption.

But the couple originally scheduled to adopt the baby backed out. Although Marley’s ex-boyfriend returns to her life, by the end of the season, they decide the best option is to place the baby under Mel and Jack’s care so that he can grow up in Virgin River. Marley even tells Mel and Jack, “It was clearly meant to be.”

“For Mel and Jack, who’ve both experienced trauma in their respective lives – and as a couple, with a miscarriage – everything is more fraught for them. It’s scarier to get emotionally invested in things when you’ve experienced disappointment and loss before. By the end of the season, it’s a celebration of their resilience and their spirit, both as individuals and as a couple,” explains showrunner Patrick Sean Smith.

As for the condition with which the baby was born, Marley began experiencing concerning symptoms at the Founder’s Day celebration, requiring specialised treatment only available at the Grace Valley clinic. Not long after, the doctors discover that the baby has a heart issue, and a specialist on that very condition lives in Mel’s LA hometown, who turns out to be her ex and former coworker, Eli.

In the finale, we see Mel coaching Marley through delivery before the baby, Mel, and Jack hop in an ambulance to the NICU under Eli’s care.