The Pod Generation -

Rachel nodded. “Can I hear the heartbeat?”

One woman, a midwife named Sasha with gray-streaked hair and hands that never stopped moving, taught Rachel about natural birth. Not the sanitized version in history books, but the raw, bloody, roaring reality of it. The Pod Generation

Everyone’s doing it. That was the problem. Five years ago, natural birth had become a fringe phenomenon — a curiosity for historical documentaries and religious enclaves. The Womb Liberation Act of 2041 had declared gestation a “medical procedure,” and like all medical procedures, it could be optimized. Why suffer through nine months of nausea, exhaustion, and risk when a sleek, climate-controlled pod could grow your child with 99.97% efficiency? Rachel nodded

A low, watery thrum filled the room. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Rachel’s eyes stung. Mark squeezed her hand, but his attention was on his own tablet, where work messages were piling up. Everyone’s doing it

From across the room, her partner, Mark, was already signing the digital consent forms with his thumbprint. He looked up, catching her eye. “It’s the right choice, Rae. Everyone’s doing it.”