Enuka Okuma, Mason McCulley, and Tracy Ifeachor in The Pitt. Photo: John Johnson/Max.
Eleven hours into a bustling shift at The Pitt, and we think we’ve seen it all — overdoses, cardiac arrest, sickle cell flare-ups, and more. Though no one leaves Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Hospital unscathed — whether physically or mentally — Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch and his dedicated crew work to perform what dedicated viewers and medical professionals consider miracles. In the series’ 11th episode, “Hour Eleven: 5:00 P.M.-6:00 P.M.” which dropped Thursday (March 13), a woman and her gay best friend arrive to the hospital to deliver a baby via surrogate.
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Natalie (Enuka Okuma) is carrying a baby for Justin (Mason McCulley) and Sean (Jay Walker), but by the time she arrives, she’s waited a full day since contractions began, as her last two labors were very long, and she wanted to wait it out this time. By the time Natalie and Justin get to the hospital, she’s crowning — and nothing about this birth is left to the viewers’ imagination.
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This wasn’t actor Noah Wyle’s first go-around with birth. Wyle, who plays Dr. Robby and is a writer and executive producer on The Pitt, previously played Dr. John Carter on the Peabody and Emmy-winning medical drama ER. But this particular moment on The Pitt was unlike any scene he had ever filmed.
“I’ve delivered many babies,” Wyle tells INTO, “so many that I’ve kind of lost count. But I’ve never delivered a baby like this before, where everything I was saying and describing that I was doing, I was actually doing.”
On The Pitt, each moment takes place in-real time, as a singular episode details one of 15 hours of a shift in the hospital.
As the birth quite literally plays out on-screen, the baby’s head goes back in, indicating that his shoulder is stuck on Natalie’s pelvic bone, forcing her to change her pushing techniques. As the scene is pretty graphic, Okuma was surprised by how realistically the crew was able to replicate a human vagina through prosthetics.
“I got the part in August [2024], but we didn’t film until that November,” says Okuma. “I was told because there are so many machinations at work, that they wanted the actress really early. So in my mind I was like, ‘Are they gonna make a mold of my nether regions? Like, how are we doing this?’ But that was not the case at all. They use prosthetics and it was a whole other piece, and it was not modeled after me. But it did have to be done early so that we could make sure that they got everything just right. And yet, I still had to sign nudity waivers and things like that, because of the intimacy level of what was happening.”
Like Wyle, this wasn’t Okuma’s first go-around with pregnancy on television. Throughout the course of Okuma’s storyline as publishing executive Sloane Mitchell on Canadian sitcom Workin’ Moms, we see Sloane as she navigates pregnancy through in vitro fertilization.
You get to see all walks of life, and, not only the diversity in our episode, but also the fact that it is a gay couple with the surrogate being the best friend.
Mason McCulley, actor
“These are stories about real people, and what women go through,” says Okuma, “I’m blessed to be able to tell these stories.”
Though McCulley, a self-proclaimed “guest star actor,” has appeared in several rattling television universes — including a 2011 Grey’s Anatomy episode in which his character received a penile transplant — he had never been on a set as rigorous as that of The Pitt. He was also excited to tell a more realistic, often underrepresented queer story.
Oftentimes, queer baby stories feature a male couple going through the process of adopting a baby, starting their family, and living happily ever after. But McCulley enjoyed telling this particular story as so many similar situations in hospitals remind us of our humanity.
“What I loved about [this episode] so much, especially regarding the gay fathers and the surrogacy, is that hospitals, much like airports, are an equalizer,” says McCulley. “You get to see all walks of life, and, not only the diversity in our episode, but also the fact that it is a gay couple with the surrogate being the best friend. All of the writers and producers on The Pitt are taking such great care in regards to — dare I use the word, ‘diversity,’ — but that’s really what it was and I think it was just so wonderful to see the different types of parents and the different types of families.”
Though the baby is born healthy, not everything goes smoothly after the birth. Natalie experiences blood loss after releasing the placenta, and therefore, must have here uterus clamped down. Thankfully, Dr. Heather Collins (Tracy Ifeachor), is able to stop the blood loss — a moment equal parts miraculous and harrowing for her, as she discovered she had lost a baby of her own four hours prior.
“Tracy’s a pro,” says Wyle. “You might never know that she is a Royal Shakespeare Company trained British actress, but she is, with a phenomenal American accent. She brought her own technique and her own style to the role and I was extremely respectful of her process. Our characters had a lot of tension and a lot of things unsaid between them…When we would play those scenes together, they became quite electric, and you really felt [Robby and Collins’] aliveness because of the way that we both are as actors and people.”
The Pitt doesn’t shy away from the devastating moments that take place in hospitals and trauma centers, but writer Elyssa Gershman was determined to show that certain events don’t have to end in tragedy when addressed and handled correctly.
“We wanted to also show something that we had never really seen before on television in terms of actually showing the birth,” says Gershman, “and we wanted to do it in a positive way. There is a higher infant mortality rate for Black women, and we’re showing that if you’re serious and good at your job. and you’re taking everything into account, it can end well.”
Over the course of its debut season, many fans and medical workers have lauded The Pitt for its accuracy. Gershman shares that doctors were present in the writers rooms, and that the cast and crew even had a “nurses night” during which, they invited nurses into the hospital to share stories in order to help make the series more relatable.
Offscreen, the actors formed great bonds, which one would imagine would ensue after such vulnerable moments. Okuma says that much of the details in the birthing scenes came full circle in real life.
There is a higher infant mortality rate for Black women, and we’re showing that if you’re serious and good at your job. and you’re taking everything into account, it can end well.
Elyssa Gershman, writer
“Mason and I, we immediately clicked and it was just kind of neat because he was telling me that one of his best friends, her name is Natalie,” Okuma says. “And he gave me a little gift at the end of our shooting and it was was etched with a quote from Saint Andrew, and Andrew is the name my best friend, and he didn’t know that. It was just this kismet thing that happened and we were like, ‘We were meant to play these parts.’”
If there were any questions about the intricacies of childbirth, there certainly won’t be after this episode. But as we see the events unfold, Wyle hopes that this will make viewers more sensitive to those in our lives who bear children.
“I think a lot of wives are gonna slap their husbands and say, ‘See? Do you see what I had to do?,’” says Wyle. “And moms will look at their kids and say ‘Do you see what it took to bring you into this world?’ For something that is, — and I say this with total confidence, — a universally shared experience, we have a lot of discomfort talking about it and even more depicting it. So I’m hoping that this helps to normalize something that is pretty human.”♦
New episodes of The Pitt stream on Max every Thursday at 9 p.m. ET
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