'Maybe Baby' Netflix Recap & Ending Explained: Were Cecilie And Liv Carrying Their Own Babies?

It can be a gift to share the wonderful and, frankly, trying time of pregnancy with another person experiencing the same thing. But that’s hardly the case for the two couples, Cecilie and Andreas, and Liv and Malte, when their lives collide to their total dismay in Maybe Baby, or if calling it by its Danish title, Bytte Bytte Baby. In Barbara Topsoe-Rothenborg’s comedy, a wild case of mismanagement at the fertility clinic that both couples were taking treatment from births a pretty peculiar problem for the four.

Spoiler Alert

What happens in the film?

Cecilie and Andreas, and Liv and Malte don’t have much in common other than the fact they’ve been going through the very disheartening process of trying and failing to conceive a child. The IVF clinic both couples go to doesn’t just idly boast about their success rate. Cecilie and Liv soon get pregnant. But they don’t quite get to stay in that happy bubble for too long. When the two couples get a call from the clinic and sit down with the doctor, they find out that the clinic royally screwed up when they implanted the embryos. The fertilized egg that was supposed to go in Cecilie’s uterus went into Liv’s and vice versa. Now they’ve got way more on their plates with the pregnancies than they thought they would. Given the two couples’ wildly different worlds and lifestyles, they don’t see eye to eye on most things. But the most critical indecision that sparks the central conflict is about what to do with the babies once they’re born. Cecilie’s made up her mind about swapping the babies and taking the one that’s genetically hers and Andreas’. But Liv’s more of a believer in the connection she expects to feel with the baby that’ll grow in her womb for the next nine months. And she’s just not sure if she’d be able to trade it for the baby Cecilie will birth. 

What do the couples decide? 

I doubt that our two couples would’ve been the type to go brunching together even if they’d met under different circumstances. So you can’t really expect them all to get along in a situation where niceties have got to take a backseat. With their licorice beer and fancy house, Cecilie and Andreas are a bit too snooty for people like Liv and Malte. And it’s not like Cecilie’s got much tolerance for what she says is Liv’s “hocus pocus” lifestyle. Cecilie’s pretty uptight and paranoid about everything. If she can’t control something, she won’t be at peace about it. So waiting for Liv to see if she feels the connection with the baby in her womb is making her act like a cat on hot pavement. She’s even drawn up this contract to make sure Liv doesn’t get to change her mind at the last minute, but Liv’s put her foot down about needing time. When Cecilie brings it up and Malte’s hurt that Liv didn’t tell him about the contract, she only ends up signing it because she’s guilt tripped into it. But all of that tension needs a release. And Liv and Cecilie figure that if they go through the pregnancy following the rules they’ve set for each other, they can both be at peace knowing they’re doing the right thing for their babies. It’s both fair and unfair that Liv and Cecilie want to impose their personal pregnancy ideals on each other. But what’s funny is that neither of them are quite so perfect at following the dos and don’ts of gestation. Liv enjoys an occasional glass of wine.

And Cecilie’s stress eating seems to include a heckload of processed meat. But just for the sake of making sure that they’re both doing what the other wants, they play along. Liv and Cecilie’s diet change drastically, Liv’s cat gets a new home with Cecilie for the time being, and Cecilie takes up some holistic hobbies on Liv’s demand. But no matter how hard they try to meet in the middle, they’re always struggling to find a common ground. The guys, on the other hand, find it much easier to get along, so much so that just to respect Malte’s discomfort about Cecilie and Andreas being intimate while Malte’s baby is in her womb, Andreas agrees to cool it until the baby’s out. But between us, I think Malte only set that boundary because he was jealous of Andreas. Pregnancy’s a different experience for everyone. While the hormone cocktail always keeps Cecilie in the mood, Liv’s been pretty distant from Malte in the bedroom. Things get really out of hand when Liv puts her foot down about giving birth naturally, you know, without the epidural and stuff. But Cecilie feels the need to control everything about the birth of the baby she considers hers. That’s when Liv figures that she’s had enough of Cecilie’s condescending behavior. 

Were Cecilie and Liv carrying their own babies? 

Pregnancy’s a difficult enough time as it is, but life’s been putting too much pressure on Cecilie and Liv with this whole baby swap business. They’ve been so consumed and overwhelmed with the thoughts of what to do about this freaky situation that they haven’t had a moment to sit down and breathe. And because they’ve not had much time to think about anything else either, they’ve not realized that their dysfunction is a direct effect of the paranoia that’s being fed to them by their mothers. However sad it might be, it’s actually pretty common for pregnant women to be bombarded with unsolicited advice from everyone who apparently knows best about what to do and how to do it. In Cecilie and Liv’s case, the source of that constant, dizzying noise has been their mothers. Cecilie’s always paranoid because that’s how her mother wants her to be. She’s already made Cecilie feels bad enough about being 42 and childless. And now that she’s pregnant, Cecilie’s terrified that she’ll do something wrong and mess the whole thing up. Liv’s mom has been making her work non stop by convincing her that if she isn’t going all natural with every single thing about the baby, she’s not giving her baby what it deserves. While dealing with these awful fears of failing, both Cecilie and Liv have inadvertently pushed their partners away. 

When the realization hits Cecilie, she makes the first right choice in this entire time by going to Liv with the offering of a truce and a friendship they both really need. That’s when they really have composed themselves enough to look at what’s causing them to freak out so much. Liv’s been affected by her mother’s consistent disdain for Malte, something Liv knows is born out of her mother’s poor luck with men. She’s been pushing Malte away because she’s assumed that he’ll be no good at being a dad. That’s something you can understand, right? Her dad walked out when she was two, and her mother has never spoken one encouraging word about any man since. Coming to Cecilie, she’s been holding on to all the fears that she absorbed every time she miscarried. She’s sort of been too scared to get her hopes high. And that’s made her keep Andreas from enjoying this special time or even getting excited. Poor guy’s been buying baby stuff and hiding it in the wine cellar. But when Cecilie and Liv had a blowout at the hospital, their partners got too frustrated with how they were being treated. Andreas is probably tasting good beer for the first time with Malte when Liv’s mom stops by to tell them to hurry. Cecilie’s water’s broken, and Liv and Malte are probably about to become parents. When Liv holds the baby in her arms and immediately accepts her as her own, she finally feels the connection that she’s been waiting for for all this time. We meet them again some time later. Liv’s given birth to Cecilie and Andrea’s baby. Judging by the smile on their faces, the swap’s been a success, and they’re really happy to be in the special place that’s their life now. Cecilie was dead wrong when she said that their babies wouldn’t have much in common. But then again, she didn’t even expect that she and Liv would become such great friends too. After what they’ve been through, they’re practically family now. 

But wait, something interesting’s afoot in Maybe Baby’s ending. If we’re to go by the doctor and the clinic owner’s sort of vague conversation in the end, the clinic actually made a mistake in thinking that they’d made a mistake. The eggs were never swapped. Cecilie and Liv were carrying their own children all along. That basically means that they’ve effectively become parents to children who aren’t genetically theirs. It will be interesting to see how they deal with that information should the clinic decide to come clean. 

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