Rachel found an underground forum called — women and men who rejected pod gestation entirely. They met in abandoned warehouses, in basement clinics, in the greenhouses of old farms where the soil still smelled of rain.

“That’s why,” Rachel agreed.

Rachel didn’t understand at first. But then Sasha placed Rachel’s hand on her own belly — Sasha was 32 weeks pregnant, naturally, illegally — and Rachel felt a foot. A tiny, unmistakable foot pushing outward from inside.

The first pods were for the wealthy. Then the government subsidized them. Then employers began offering pod-leave instead of maternity leave. Then insurance companies quietly raised premiums for natural births, labeling them “high-risk elective choices.”

Rachel nodded. “Can I hear the heartbeat?”

“She’s growing beautifully,” Ellis reported, pulling up a 3D hologram of the fetus. Tiny fingers. Curled spine. A heart flickering like a distant star.

They argued in the pod center’s waiting room, whispering furiously while other couples scrolled through their own fetal dashboards.

“Then maybe I don’t want how it works anymore.”

She thought about her mother’s stories: the hiccups, the somersaults, the way Rachel would press a foot against her ribs and hold it there, stubbornly, for hours.

“We’re considering a third,” Mira said, swirling a glass of synthetic wine. “The pod makes it so easy. No downtime. I can still work, travel, exercise. Honestly, I forget I’m even ‘pregnant.’”

“Would you like to name the embryo today?” asked the embryologist.

The guests laughed. Rachel laughed too, but something twisted in her stomach — a phantom sensation, a memory of a body she’d never used that way.

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.”