The One With the Birth

Thursday, 11 May 1995

Carol gives birth to Ross's son Ben, while Ross and Susan spend most of the labour shut in a broom closet arguing, and Joey helps a stranger deliver her baby down the hall.

What happens

• Ross frets in the waiting room until Carol and Susan finally turn up, late because they stopped at the gift shop.
• Rachel brings Carol ice chips and starts flirting with her obstetrician, Dr. Franzblau.
• Joey bickers about basketball with a pregnant stranger named Lydia, then walks her to a delivery room when her contractions start and learns the father is not coming.
• Monica says she wants a baby, and Chandler offers her a deal that if they are both single at forty they will have one together, which she takes as an insult.
• Ross discovers Carol and Susan have settled on a name he never agreed to, and Carol orders both of them out of the room mid-labour.
• Phoebe hauls the two of them into a broom closet to break up the fight, and the door locks behind them.
• Joey coaches Lydia through the birth, then hangs back in the hall when her baby's father turns up after all.
• Locked in, Ross admits he is afraid of being left out and Susan points out there is no holiday for what she will be, and Phoebe tells them the baby is lucky to have three parents fighting over it.
• Phoebe climbs into the ceiling vent, a janitor opens the door, and Ross and Susan reach Carol in time to watch their son be born.
• Ross suggests the name Ben, taken from the janitor's uniform Phoebe borrowed, and Carol and Susan agree.