Or... (ok, prepare yourself, it's very soap opera-dramatic-ish) expanding on EKozski's idea the father could be a compulsive adulterist and the baby is actually an illegitimate child of his that the woman he slept with puts up for adoption and they end up with the baby, coincidentally (you could add something here about how the wife picked the baby because it reminded her of her husband, but she thinks nothing more of it or something...) - the wife finds out, somehow, but they decide to try and work it out and stay together for the child, but then the man cheats again and the wife kicks him out and keeps the child, though she is very poor and her husband left her with nothing, and even though he used to have a high-paying job, he switched jobs just so he didn't have to pay as much child support to his ex-wife (basically he's a sleaze-bag moronic b***ard).
And THEN he could develop cancer and the only way he can live is if he takes some of his child's bone marrow (his only living blood relative). And it's up the wife to decide. And she could go either way... let him die and pay for his mistakes, or put her child through a painful procedure so he can live? Hmm. Well, my ideas are taken from several different story lines lol. I'd hardly say they're original, but I'm writing them anyway. I think I got a little carried away here, 'cuz I'm bored.
