Inside a near-future London, Millie Dack places her hand on her behalf belly to feel her baby kick, resolute in her decision to be a single parent. Anywhere, her closest friend—a hungover Toni Munroe—steps into the shower and locations her hand on the medic console. The diagnosis can be devastating.

With this stunning, bittersweet family saga, Millie and Toni experience the aftershocks of human improvement as their children and grandchildren accept new ways of making babies. When infertility is usually something of the past, a man can create a kid without a female, a woman can create a child without a man, and artificial wombs get rid of the struggles of pregnancy. But what does it imply to be always a parent? A kid? A family?

Through some interconnected vignettes that spans five generations and three continents, this psychologically taut story explores the anxieties that arise when the science of fertility claims to provide all of the answers.