Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron (Eric Stonestreet) are getting ready to attend Lily's (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons) dance recital when they receive a long awaited phone call.
The two of them leave Lily with Jay (Ed O'Neill) and Manny (Rico Rodriguez) to baby-sit her and take Gloria (Sofía Vergara) with them to serve as a translator since the family does not speak English.
Mitch and Cameron are left very upset to have been denied a baby again after coming so close, and on the way home from the hospital the two discuss how the process has affected them and Lily.
The solution comes from Luke (Nolan Gould) who has been hiding some of the family's mail including the letter of Haley's acceptance at the college that wait-listed her.
Many critics laid praise on the emotional depth of Mitchell and Cameron's story, the well crafted humour and the use of a cliffhanger ending.
"For an Emmy-winning show that had a pretty mediocre season, I'm totally shocked to say that I think "Baby on Board" might've been my favorite Modern Family episode of all-time.
The true mark of a perfect sitcom is a show that can take you from laughing to crying in a matter of seconds - and this episode served up plenty of that.
"[3] Christine N. Ziemba of Paste Magazine rated the episode with a 9/10, closing her review with: "We liked the fact that the Modern Family writers didn’t spoonfeed us happy endings.
"[5] Also, the storyline with the failed adoption of a second baby by Mitch and Cameron and the way the two actors played the scene of frustration and disappointment received positive feedback.
"...Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet got to play maybe the strongest emotional material they've had in the show's run to date, and that made the episode a lot richer than we would have guessed [...] the reaction these two men had to the disappointment felt entirely earned.