“The One with the Birth Mother”

Friends season 10, episode 9
Original air date: January 08, 2004

While Chandler and Monica fly to Ohio to meet the birth mother who has picked their file, Joey tries to convince Phoebe that he's grown up enough to date her friend Sarah. Phoebe's hesitant, because Joey's pattern has always been to date her friends once and then forget they exist. And Ross enlists Rachel's help to shop for clothes for an upcoming date, because he really wants to look cool.

But of course nothing's ever smooth. The birth mother in Ohio greets Chandler and Monica by saying that she was just so moved by their file, considering that Chandler's a doctor and Monica is a minister. Their interview with her is brief, and when she leaves the room, they talk to the adoption agent about how exactly this woman got that information about them. He explains that she looks through all the files, which are anonymous, and chooses one she likes. The agency then looks up who that file belongs to and contacts them. Obviously, there's been a mix-up, but Monica begs Chandler to just go along with it, because she wants this baby so badly.

Joey's been able to convince Phoebe, too, to go along with setting him up with Sarah. Unfortunately, after the first date, Joey complains to Phoebe that he can never see her again. Seems she committed one of Joey's cardinal sins: she took food off his plate! Phoebe, exasperated, says that next time he should just order extra food on the side that they can share, and so Joey agrees to go on another date and try that technique.

Ross is grateful for Rachel's help, but all the things she's picking out for him are a little out there for his taste. She finally chooses some tasteful clothes for him, and he goes home to get ready. As Ross heads out on his date, Rachel realizes that some of her shopping bags have gotten mixed up with Ross', but not quickly enough to prevent him from wearing one of Rachel's shirts on his date. He's sure that all the people around him are staring at him because he's so cool, until his date shows up wearing the same shirt. They take one look at each other, nod, and say "So this was fun," and go their separate ways.

Joey's date is not going much better, since the extra food isn't preventing Sarah from still trying to share the food off of Joey's plate. She may have been confused by his completely ungenuine use of the phrase, "What's mine is yours." In any case, he has to lay down a ground rule that she can't touch his food, which she respects. But when her chocolate cake comes at the end of the meal, and she has to take a phone call before she can eat it, she warns Joey that if she can't touch his food, he can't touch hers. She lets him know that she expects it all to be there when she gets back. Of course, it's not, and Joey once again chooses food over a relationship.

As the adoption agent is preparing the paperwork for the birth mother to sign, Chandler confronts Monica again about the fact that it's really not sitting well with him that the birth mother thinks she's giving her baby to people that they're not. He convinces her that they really have to tell her the truth, and maybe she'll like them for them.

They do tell the truth, but the birth mother is rather focused on the fact that they lied to her before. Monica asks her to just look at the file, but she refuses even that. Chandler follows the birth mother out of the room and begs her to at least consider them. When he tells her more about them, she realizes that she did see their file, and she did like them. But that doesn't change the fact that they lied. Chandler makes an impassioned plea about how wonderful Monica is and how great a mother she will be. He's very sweet and touching about it, and he's able to change the birth mother's mind.