Pam's in labor, but she's also in denial. Even though her contractions are only a few minutes apart, she's refusing to go to the hospital, ostensibly for insurance reasons but really because she's scared shitless. The coworkers make their best efforts to distract Pam while Jim gets increasingly freaked out. And when the expectant parents finally do make it out of the office, Pam unwisely -- okay, idiotically -- sends Dwight to their house for her iPod. Pam has a very long labor in the hospital while Dwight rips out their kitchen cabinets to clear out the mold he found. Meanwhile, back at the office, Michael is looking to repeat what he sees as his matchmaking success with Jim and Pam, and sets up Erin and Kevin. That goes as well as expected.
Another couple not hitting it off: little Cecilia Marie Halpert and her mom's boob. Things briefly take a turn for the better on that front during the night, and then a turn for the much, much worse. It's a long story, so check back for that.
In addition to unsolicited home renovation, Dwight has also been busy negotiating a contract with Angela to bear his child. Which, beyond the base-line horror of what that entails, looks like it'll get further complicated after he asks Pam's friend Isobel out again and she says yes. I mean, Isobel's pretty and all, but she's clearly got some kind of severe brain damage.
In the end, Andy asks Erin out and Cecilia latches on, so everything is where it's supposed to be. Except for the Halperts' kitchen and Dwight's jellies (the latter in more ways than one. Shudder).
Watch the two-part episode here and here, then discuss it in our forums, then see why, despite their occasional terribleness, Jim and Pam are perfect for each other.
Dwight seems offended at watching Jim and Pam talk to their clients on the phone about their baby , especially when it seems to translate into sales. "You need to come by your sales honorably!" he protests. Pam reasonably says it's not dishonorable to talk about your life; "People like it." Dwight decides to give it a try, and then we see him talking to a client about Mose's goat-fungus. "I need a baby," he talking-heads, saying it's the only way he can compete with Jim and Pam. "Also, I've been noticing a gaping hole in my life. Sometimes I wake up cradling a gourd." That may not mean what he thinks it means, as we'll see later. To our unending horror.
Kevin explains how he and Pam have been getting hungry at the same time, so they've been sharing a few meals -- just "second breakfast, lunch, second lunch, and first dinner." Because they're hobbits now, apparently. Pam has a mild contraction right there at the table with Kevin just as he's suggesting they finish up their tradition with an "ultrafeast," but as Jim explains, "We're slow-playing it because of our stupid HMO." She says she gets an extra day in the hospital if they check in after midnight, and Jim makes a lame joke about the baby's still-unknown gender that she's so tired of I'm not even recapping it.
Michael comes rushing out of his office in his coat, all excited about driving Jim and Pam to the hospital now that she's having "contraptions." He even put diesel in the car and has baby-proofed the office and everything, which is where he thinks the baby was conceived. Jim sets him straight: "Burning Man, Porta-Potty." Jim and Pam explain to everyone about wanting to hold off until midnight, and Nick the IT guy makes a joke about not waiting until the kid turns into a teenager in there. Michael meanly calls him a nerd, and Nick looks to Angela for sympathy, who of course has none. "Nerd," Dwight adds. Wow, what a terrible idea to piss off an IT guy.
Kelly's heard all kinds of labor horror stories, and is even doing some really bloody internet research. Worst of all: "Sometimes you poop yourself!"
Out of nowhere in the break room, Dwight intones to Angela without looking at her, "Bear my child." He tells her to say nothing if she agrees. She says nothing. "Very well. Let's meet in our old meeting spot and bang it out." He leaves Angela almost smiling to herself. Isn't it romantic?
Pam's contractions are seven minutes apart, but she is still holding off. And Jim is getting so nervous about this he's resorting to a football metaphor in his TH.
Back at their desks, Pam tells Jim to stop watching her. "Okay, Crazy," he says, and talks about all the printers he's going to sell. Everyone starts gathering around, and as Andy blathers about his family's bizarre baby-naming history, Jim starts noticing people gathering around and asks them to go back to work. Michael reminds him he's not co-manager any more, and Pam adds that she appreciates the distraction. And since distracting people is Michael's superpower, he calls a meeting at once. Going into the ads, he shows off some of the distraction skills that made him so successful in grade school.
In the conference room, Michael tells the assembled troops that they're in there to create distractions. Andy asks if sleight of hand tricks are allowed, then asks, "Can anyone do those?" Andy, if you can't, who else here would? Stanley and Oscar get up to leave, followed by Angela, while Pam has another contraction. Which ends just as Kelly comes in to compliment her bravery. Michael puts out a call for special skills. Phyllis offers to put her lipstick on Molly-Ringwald-in-Breakfast-Club style and gets shot down. But when Andy offers to do the "Evolution of Dance" dance, Pam tips Michael a thumbs-up. You'd think she'd be over watching her coworkers re-enact YouTubes by now.
Angela meets Dwight down in the warehouse, and finds him banging out a parenting contract on a manual typewriter. He starts dictating it into a recorder, with such provisos as his insistence in being referred to as "Morpheus."
Pam's contractions are six minutes apart. "Another 75 contractions and you are going to be there!" Michael encourages. Kevin tells her to hold out for Ultrafeast. Jim's about to call the doctor, but Michael's on Pam's side, suggesting they do the opposite of everything on the "ten ways to induce labor" list he's printed out. The first item is "stimulate the nipples." Kevin wants to cut holes in Pam's shirt, but Meredith gets up to retrieve the one she has in her car that's already like that. Glad to see someone has that covered, if you'll pardon the expression, and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. What's the opposite of easting spicy food? "Stick spicy food up her butt!" Kevin suggests. Jim gets up, wanting to be done with this almost as much as he wants to go the hospital, but Pam tells him to quit distracting her from her distractions. He admits he's frazzled, which is not a state we see him in unless Charles is around, and THs about how everyone thinks he's being crazy when Pam's the crazy one. Then he opens up all the baby books he has, sits on the floor, and reads aloud from almost every one, "Five to seven minutes." Well, I'm glad to see he's not crazy.
Dwight and Angela are hung up on the "child must be male" clause of the contract.
Pam comes out and finds Jim waiting in the car. But she's not going to get in because she knows he'll drive her to the hospital. She assures him that "she's not coming out." Oops. She thinks Jim is going to be mad that she called the doctor last week, but he's thrilled. There's a whole happy moment, and Jim feels better. Pam kisses him before heading back inside, and he suddenly notices that she changed her clothes. "Yeah, my water broke," she breezes, and heads back inside." Well, at least Jim got to feel better for half a minute there.
She's barely inside the office before being all but leveled by the contraction. Michael asks if it's midnight yet. Phyllis says it's 4:35. "Too bad you didn't have sex seven hours later," Michael says, and now even he wants her to go to the hospital. Pam suddenly realizes it's time for Ultrafeast and starts looking for Kevin. "You want to eat cat food with Kevin and not go to the hospital?" Oscar explains the difference between Fancy Feast and Ultrafeast (with some added editorializing). Pam THs that there's no rush to the hospital, saying she'll get there. "And if I don't get there, I don't get there." Oh, no she didn't."
Kevin introduces Pam to his Hollywood-themed Ultrafeast that he's done a pretty good job of pulling together, and she has another contraction while Jim paces outside in the hall. "The doctor says it's fine as long as I can talk through it," Pam barely manages to almost say. Michael appears out of nowhere and says it's time to go, and Jim comes to help cajole her up out of the chair. Even Kevin takes an arm to help lift, and after freaking out a bit about wanting to wait some more, she suddenly reveals the real reason: "I'm not going today! Because I can't do it, I don't think I can do it!" Jim crouches in front of her to be Jim, with Michael right behind him in that inappropriate way that Jim doesn't even bother to notice any more half the time, and Kevin tossing in comforting remarks of his own from the side. Jim asks how far apart the contractions are and Michael says two minutes. And now there's a freak-out, because they waited too long. Oh, really, you THINK!?
Out to the bullpen, where what should be an efficient departure is delayed by Dwight's refusal to let them call an ambulance, and Michael's insistence on packing his own go-bag. He wonders if he should bring a dictionary. "The hospital will provide dictionaries! Bring a thesaurus!" Oscar calls out. There's the business with the tape measure that you already saw all through the Olympics, and Jim can't find his keys, because he forgot they're in his hand. Out go Jim, Pam, Michael and Dwight, to a round of applause from the employees left behind. As soon as they're gone, Meredith realizes it's five o'clock.
Cut to Michael, Dwight, and the 2.9999 Halperts on the elevator OH MY GOD YOU NEVER EVER GET ON AN ELEVATOR WITH A WOMAN IN LABOR ON TV WHAT ARE THEY THINKING? The doors are just about to close when Stanley holds the door to get on. For a minute it looks like this is going to be a whole long thing, but luckily for Pam the person who wants to get on is Toby, whom Michael has no problem shooing away. "Out, out, out! Idiot."
Dwight is going to escort them to the hospital, but stops to point out where he saw a deer last week. He THs about how he loves escorting people so much he started an escort service. "Got a lot of calls. Mostly creeps. Made a few friends."
In the Halpert-mobile, Pam and Jim yell at Michael to stop texting while driving, even though he's texting about them. Dwight puts a cherry-top on his roof to try to get through the rush-hour traffic, only to find himself getting immediately pulled over by a real cop. As Dwight pulls to the shoulder, jettisoning his medieval weaponry out the window, the officer calls over the squad car's loudspeaker, "Don't make this difficult, Dwight!" Someday that joke will get old, but today is not that day.
Jim and Pam can't agree on whether they should go to the house for her iPod for the birth song. Michael gets on his phone to send Dwight to Casa Halpert to retrieve it. Pam, who clearly has still not started thinking straight, takes the phone to tell Dwight where the iPod and, more importantly, the keys are, but Dwight ignores her because he's getting a ticket written out, and besides he doesn't need a key, anyhow.
When they get to the hospital. Jim tells Michael to park the car. Which Michael does, right behind an ambulance in the bay. A nurse in scrubs tells Michael he can't park there. Hurling his keys across the street, Michael declares. "I just did." Well, I guess he won that one.
Inside the hospital, Jim nervously gives us an update in the hallway before being called in for the pushing. As soon as he's gone, Michael comes charging through, hauling a cumulonimbus cloud of pink balloons. "Family only behind this point," he tells the camera before barging right into the delivery room. We get to hear a bit of the horror that's going down in there, presumably through Michael's body mic, and then Michael comes back out, looking like he's about to boot. Mercifully, it doesn't sound like anybody noticed him. "Not yet, not yet," he tells the arriving coworkers. And then he does a TH in which he delivers what may be the best and most horrifying line of the season: "That kid's gonna have a lot of hair." Oh well, at least he and Pam are even now.
It must be the day when Andy shows up, disappointed that the kid isn't out yet. He holds up the framed newspaper from yesterday he got the kid, with the banner headline, "Spring has Sprung." Which will now have to be swapped for the one reading "Scranton Strangler Strikes Again." Scranton Strangler? [Why was that not a plotline this season? - Zach]
People wait around outside with growing impatience. Michael gives Phyllis a hard time about wanting to leave, until learning she has an ice cream cake in the car. "Oh my God, go! Go! Go! Are you insane?" Michael knows what's important.
Michael tries to bug the about-to-be-parents through the door for an ETA, and eventually hears what sounds like the big moment. Then we see him lighting a cigar and doing a bad Jimmy Cagney until a nurse tells him to put it out. The cigar, not the Cagney, although both are obnoxious.
Jim comes out to announce the arrival of Cecilia Marie Halpert, 7 pounds, 2 ounces, 18 inches, mother and daughter doing fine. Michael intercepts the hugs meant for Jim. It's a big day for Michael, after all.
Later, Pam's mom arrives in her room with coffee, and observes that the baby has a full diaper. Jim says he's got it, and we see that for the past two months he's been busy practicing on everything from the past two months diapering dolls, footballs, and Angela's cat.
Michael comes in, and he's not too weirded out by the awkwardness of seeing his ex to stare at her boobs until she leaves. Michael wants to hold the baby, and after Pam coaches him on the use of hand sanitizer, Jim eventually hands the tot over, and Michael starts repeating his own name like he wants her to learn it. "That's so weird, she was saying it just before you got here." Jim says. He's kidding, but I'm kind of surprised this baby hasn't given the camera a single knowing or beseeching look yet, given her parentage.
Dwight tells us what he did yesterday, as we see it happening in montage form: he broke into Jim and Pam's house, ransacked the place in search of the iPod, found mold under the kitchen sink instead, slept in their bed with nothing on his ass but some blurry pixels, and is now getting to work the day with a sledgehammer on the entire counter assembly. The only part of this I don't buy is Dwight missing work for this.
Back at the office, so it's clearly a work day, Michael is reminiscing about old-school Pam and old-school Jim. "She was a receptionist. She was engaged to an animal." Memories of Jim aren't quite so colorful. "The odds of getting them together were insurmounintable [sic]." Long story short, he's taking credit for getting them together, and now he's asking who's single. While some people raise their hands, Kelly says she isn't, and clamps onto one of Ryan's arms while he uses the other to hold up the hand at the end of it. Stanley suggests Michael find someone for himself instead of meddling in their affairs. He shouldn't have said "affairs." Michael asks for another show of hands. "Who wants to live in a world where Stanley has two lovers and you don't have any?" For the first time in The Office history, Stanley's hand goes up. Meredith mentions that she's never getting married. "Like Clooney," she THs, pointing to herself. Michael asks Andy, who reminds him that he's still on the injured list with the torn scrotum and all. Of course the camera seeks out Erin. Andy THs that he is going to ask her out when the stars align, literally. Michael pretends to shoot everyone with love Cupid-style, and mimes a messy exit wound out the other side of Phyllis's head. Cupid-style.
Jim and Pam snuggle in her hospital bed watching the baby, and politely decline when the nurse offers to take her to the nursery for the night so they can get a little rest. What then follows is a whole montage of them fumbling with the useless little creature as the night goes on. Pam seems to have trouble with the breastfeeding, even when Jim tries to show her how to push it out. He can't possibly be serious, but I think he is. He secretly buzzes the nurse, and when she comes back to bring the baby to the nursery and maybe give her a bottle while she's there, Pam frets about nipple confusion. "Oh good, you know everything," the nurse deadpans. She promises to bring the baby back later. Pam thinks it'll be good for Cecilia to socialize with the other babies. Now it's she who can't be serious, but is.
Michael calls Erin into his office, and Kevin jumps out from behind Michael's office door. "I would like you to meet your new boyfriend!" Michael announces. "Yes!" Kevin says happily. Wow, Michael, presumptuous much? Kevin is about to move in for a kiss until Michael tells him to wait for the cookies to cool before he pops them in his mouth. Michael suggests the two of them have lunch together, and Erin agrees. Then she asks to talk to Michael in private. After Kevin leaves the room, she tells Michael she likes Andy. Michael claims to be worried about Kevin and his enormous heart. "Literally, he has an elephant heart." Erin buys it, and agrees to lunch. Again. Poor Erin.
Jim and Pam are joined in their double room by another couple and their new baby. This new family seems to have a lot more success with the breastfeeding. Just what Pam needs to see.
Dwight now has a whole crew demolishing Jim and Pam's kitchen.
Erin tries unsuccessfully to make lunch conversation with Kevin, but it's like watching a houseplant being chatted up by a slightly more interesting yet not interested houseplant. The camera spots Andy watching them from behind a plant. Andy babbling-heads about his long plant-hiding history before admitting that he was jealous of Erin and Kevin.
A hospital guy comes into to Jim and Pam's room, offering the services of a lactation consultant. And in fact, he's it. "Got milk?" he "jokes." He draws the curtain, and Jim has to sit there while this dude undoes the front of his wife's hospital gown and gets right in there for some hands-on demonstration of various techniques. That seems to work for a bit, but no sooner is he gone than Cecilia falls off. Jim offers to help reattach her, but Pam thinks that would be weird. "That makes sense," Jim mutters. "I'll just go get the other guy." I know we're supposed to feel bad for Jim and all, but all I can think about is how poor Creed missed his calling.
Angela's on the phone with Dwight, who's still at Jim and Pam's. He invites her over that afternoon. Oh, NO NO NO NO NO!
The baby wakes up the middle of the night. Or possibly in the middle of a room-wide afternoon nap, because the other mom is asleep, too, and stays that way. Pam has Jim get the baby. He grabs the baby out of the bassinet and together they plop her onto Pam, where she latches right on. Here's where I called it, by the way.
Erin goes to "break up" with Kevin, but Michael gets tired of listening to her taking a long time to get around to the point by using the word "friend" in every sentence while Kevin continues to not get the snap, and steps in. "Do you really think that you could have dated Erin?" Michael asks, blaming Kevin for believing Michael when he said otherwise. Kevin takes offense and reminds him that Lynne (from the "Blood Drive" episode, where Michael threw the singles mixer) was hotter than Erin. Michael disagrees. Getting more upset, Kevin says that Holly and Jan are way hotter than Michael. Michael also disagrees with that. "And I have a personality," Michael adds, and is about to continue when he is interrupted by the sight of Andy peering at them though the nearest plant. Kevin leaves Accounting in tears, for which Michael blames Erin. Because unfortunately, she's easy to blame.
Early morning at the hospital (or just post-nap), Isabel -- the bridesmaid who slept with Dwight at the wedding -- comes in and admires the baby in Pam's arms. Pam sits up, and happens to look over at the other side of their bed, where, to the non-surprise of many, Cecilia is fast asleep in her bassinet. "Wrong baby!" Pam hisses at Jim in horror. To his credit, Jim quickly wakes up to slip the little changeling her back into place before the other mom wakes up. The baby begins fussing as Jim jumps back on the bed with Pam, smoothly using one hand to coast the bassinet over to the other mom before she's fully awake. "Has she been fussing long?" the other mom asks, and wonders why her little girl doesn't seem hungry. Isabel watches uncomfortably while Jim and Pam wear the expressions usually associated with the part of The Diary of Anne Frank when the jackboots can be heard stomping around downstairs.
The nurse comes in later that afternoon, and the baby -- the right baby -- still won't latch on. Pam starts to say something about "the other baby." "Ha ha ha!" Jim says, because the entire other family is still right there in the room. The nurse brings up their 3:00 departure time, now that it's 2:35. She notices the car seat there in the room, and advises, "That bottom part needs to go in the car." "News flash, the whole thing needs to go in the car," Jim corrects. The nurse pity-laughs and leaves, promising to be back in 25 minutes. Jim is again flummoxed at not being found charming.
Isabel comes into Jim and Pam's house with a casserole for them and finds Dwight still leading the construction crew. It's just a whole day for awkward wedding hook-up reunions, isn't it? At least new cabinets are going up now. Dwight takes the casserole off Isabel's hands, since the fridge is in the back yard. Before she leaves, Dwight asks to come over for a teeth-cleaning some time, and he says he'll call her. "Do that," she smiles. Wow, between the shit Angela's putting up with and Isabel's total lack of revulsion, I'm suddenly morbidly curious about what exactly those blurry pixels were hiding earlier.
Jim and Pam are being wheeled out to the door of the hospital while the baby cries. Once they get outside, the nurse asks them where their car is. "A lot of fathers bring the car around," he remarks. Jim agrees that would be the smart thing to do, and promises to be right back.
At the office, Andy asks Erin to send a fax, which reads, "Erin will you have dinner with me?" Unfortunately he either does not know or has forgotten how scrupulous she is about not reading faxes people ask her to send. He insists on waiting for confirmation. She tries, but since Andy directed it to their own fax number, it's busy. Andy jokingly threatens to fire her if she doesn't send it immediately. She breaks down in tears, because this is too much after the day she's had. Upset himself, Andy tells her to read the fax. "I'm asking you out," he explains. She goes from miserable to ecstatic happy in a half-second, and while they start to talk about a date, Michael makes shooting motions at them through his office window like this is all his doing. Which, he might have a point, since who knows how long it would have been before the entire moon was visible through Andy's bedroom skylight?
The nurse hustles Pam out of the wheelchair because he needs it back. She's left sitting there waiting alone while the baby cries with increasing desperation in her arms. Pam makes with the privacy drape and tries to get Cecilia to latch on, and Jim finally comes back with the car. "Five tickets on the windshield," he says, not realizing how lucky he is not to have had to walk to the impound lot. [Which, aren't his keys in the bushes across the street? - Z] Pam doesn't care; they're doing it. Jim asks if she used his move. She says he used a variation on it, which is a variation on the response, "No, moron."
Back in the office, Michael smokes another cigar while talking about the feeing "when two people who are perfect for each other overcome all obstacles and find true love. And that is what I thought that Erin and Kevin were gonna find today." Then he almost throws up in his wastebasket. A little on the nose, don't you think?