‘Modern Family’ Couple Makes Decision About Adopting a Child

After weeks of speculation, Modern Family has welcomed a new member into their brood. For the past several episodes, Cam (Eric Stonestreet) and Mitchell (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) have anxiously mulled over whether or not to adopt another child of their own. Tonight, their decision was finally made.

The episode made no effort to hide how much difficulties Cam and Mitchell had with the decision, starting off with the couple in bed and fretting over the pros (“It’s a baby boy!”) as well as the cons (“We don’t have enough room!”). Things didn’t get any easier when they asked their other adopted daughter, Lily (Aubrey Anderson-Emmons), for advice. While she was encouraging of the idea at first, she also pointed out how old each of them would be by the time their prospective child would be when he graduated high school, which considerably deflated their enthusiasm.

Add to that the extra anxiety over pressure from Gloria (Sofia Vergara) on not only parenthood but also on them buying a bigger house from her to help make room for their growing family. In the end, Mitch made the decision after getting a phone call. They’re adopting a baby boy — and earning Gloria a pretty nice commission, to boot.

While things were all well and good on-screen, there was a tragedy behind-the-scenes of the long-running sitcom, which is just a couple of episodes away from concluding its 11-season run. Beatrice, the bulldog who played Stella, passed away just days after filming the show’s series finale. She joined the cast in back in Season 4, replacing her predecessor, the French bulldog, Brigitte.

Stella’s owner, Steve Solomon, spoke with PEOPLE about the news, saying that Stella “worked her butt off” on set for all those years, adding that, “We can’t thank her enough for that.”

Off the set, star Sarah Hyland recently spoke to Brad Goreski on his podcast, Brad Behavior, about coronavirus, and how it affects her as an immunocompromised person. “Everything in this house is sanitized,” Hyland revealed.

“Say someone gets a 24-hour bug, I get it for a week or more,” she went on to explain. “For me, it’s really dangerous. My panic level is pretty high, but I also have a lot of health issues that are very susceptible to stress, so I’m trying to remain calm.”