In the privacy of her bedroom, Rachel admires her pregnant belly in the mirror. But at that moment she wakes up, revealing the pregnancy was just a dream. She leaves the bed to have breakfast made by Elena the house AI, who is also opening the curtains and doing all the chores.
Elena notices that Rachel’s serotonin levels have gone down and tells her to spend some time in an artificial nature pod, but Elena turns down the idea because she’s busy. Then Elena wakes up her husband Alvy to say goodbye before she leaves for work. On the train she notices a woman carrying a very particular pod.
At home Alvy spends his morning working on his plants. He doesn’t like Elena controlling his routine like she does with Rachel and keeps missing her cues, delaying his breakfast. At the office Rachel introduces the workers to a new model of AI-controlled robot called, who will soon be taking over the company’s client portfolios and become executive assistants.
The employees are worried they may become irrelevant, but another manager called Alice uses corporate speech to assure them they’ll always be needed. Afterward Rachel is called by the head of HR, who has decided to give her a promotion. First she asks some questions, so Rachel has to explain Alvy is a botanist and that makes her the primary source of income, but they aren’t considering having a baby yet.
The lady points out this has been Rachel’s best year so she should use this momentum to have that child, especially since their company has acquired The Womb Center. This means the company covers part of the payment. When Rachel returns to her office, her new robot gets her profile from Elena and schedules a nature pod session.
While she’s working she receives a call from the Womb Center to inform her that a spot opened up so she should visit them to at least get a tour. Since the wait list usually lasts two years, Rachel accepts the appointment. During her lunch breaks she goes to the nature pod and relaxes surrounded by recordings of the sea and trees.
She falls asleep and dreams about having a baby again. Meanwhile at the school greenhouse Alvy is trying to teach his students about fresh fruit, but they think eating stuff taken from nature is disgusting because they’re used to food made by machines. After work Rachel goes to see her AU therapist Eliza, who guides her into sharing her inner turmoil.
It turns out “Womb Center” is a place that allows a couple to grow a baby inside an external artificial womb, which saves the woman from any potential health hazards and allows both parents to be responsible for the fetus. However Rachel knows Alvy will want to have a natural child and that's why she hasn't told him about the appointment yet. Eliza assures her that even if the baby grows inside a pod, they’ll still be a natural human growing inside a normal human uterus.
Afterward Rachel goes to a clean oxygen bar with Alice, who convinces her to tell Alvy about the appointment because surprising him when the day comes will be worse. However when Rachel arrives home ready to talk, Alvy tells her about his day and complains about humans lacking contact with nature nowadays and how that’s affecting society, scaring Rachel into silence. On Thursday, Rachel goes to the Womb Center alone.
First all the visitors are shown a video from the founder, who explains he started the company to allow women to have successful careers and fix the declining birthrate. Then Director Linda gives them a tour of the place while explaining the technology they use. In the incubation room, she chooses a client’s pod to show the baby growing inside.
Using their phones, the parents can expose the child to all kinds of music and even choose what they’ll eat. The pod comes with a base to keep it connected at home and a 48-hour battery in case the parents need to travel. When Rachel asks if the baby can hear the outside world, Linda says yes and encourages parents to talk to their child to help development.
After the tour, Linda shows Rachel the womb’s prices and asks her for a deposit to reserve a spot. In the evening, Rachel gets home and Alvy mentions that he got a notification about an 8700 dollar deposit. Rachel has no choice but to explain she sent that money to Womb Center to reserve their spot.
Alvy gets angry because she’s been making such big decisions without discussing them with him first, so Rachel apologizes and they share a hug. Sometime later they visit Alice and her husband, who share their experience and show them their own pod. They’re both very happy with their choice, especially because of the health benefits.
The husband offers Alvy to hold the pod, but Alvy refuses. When the couple returns home, they argue the whole concept of an artificial womb. Alvy sees it as just a plastic gadget full of chemicals, but Rachel swears it feels like an actual womb to the baby.
When Alvy points out he needs more time to think about it, Rachel reminds him they need to confirm soon or they’ll lose their reservation. Determined to solve this, Rachel asks Alvy to see Eliza. He agrees to go but his anti-AI attitude stays during the whole appointment.
He thinks a computer without feelings can’t judge a person’s emotional state, but Eliza disagrees and says it’s good that she doesn't have emotions because then she can provide neutral advice. After the session is over, Alvy lies to Rachel, saying it went well. That night the couple goes to a restaurant and the argument continues.
Rachel finally gets tired of it and announces they aren’t having the baby because she doesn’t want to fight with him anymore. When they go home, they do the dirty and Alvy tells Rachel they should have the pod baby because he can tell how much it matters to her. The next day the couple meets with Linda to sign the contract.
Linda asks if it’s important for Alvy to be the father because to make the baby they only need Rachel’s eggs. However if they want the child to be a boy, they’ll need Alvy’s Y chromosome. Rachel doesn’t hesitate to ask Linda to also use Alvy’s seed to make the baby and they’ll let nature choose the gender.
Afterward the couple watches the fertilization process on a big screen while Linda narrates what’s going on. Moments later a nurse brings them the fetus inside a small jar, which feels very underwhelming. When they go home, they get a call from Rachel’s parents to congratulate them.
The father tells Alvy he should sell his property on Shell Island to have some extra money for the baby, which makes Alvy uncomfortable so Rachel tells him to drop it. They don’t have the pod yet because the fetus must develop some more before it’s sent home. For the next few days Rachel keeps her eyes on the tablet that is connected to the pod at the lab, always making sure her baby’s status is fine and choosing music.
This causes her to get very distracted at work and even in the kitchen. One night Alvy tries to get naughty but Rachel turns him down, saying she needs some time because she just got pregnant. As days pass Alvy keeps ignoring the tablet so Rachel tries to convince him to choose some music or send a message to the baby.
Alvy refuses because he thinks the embryo isn’t developed well enough yet to be affected by any interaction. Eventually Rachel goes to the lab to visit her pod but she can’t open it. The nurse explains that’s on purpose because the babies require darkness for the first seven weeks.
The window will be uncovered when they hear the first heartbeat. After watching the nurse take a pod away because it was ready to be born, Rachel picks up her own pod and sits with it to try to form a connection. Sometime later a very pregnant Rachel gets a C-section in an operation room, but instead of a baby she gives birth to a hard-boiled egg.
At that moment she wakes up, realizing it was only a dream. The next time she visits Eliza she tells her about her dreams, however Eliza thinks analyzing dreams is a thing of the past and modern science has concluded they’re random. But since Rachel insists, Eliza points out the dream is validating Rachel’s choice to use an artificial womb.
A few weeks later the couple visits the lab and they finally get to hear the baby’s heartbeat. The nurse opens the little window and they get to see their baby, who is still tiny and not very exciting. Some couples take the pod home, but most of them keep it at the lab for safety so Rachel and Alvy do the same.
More time passes and Rachel finishes decorating the baby’s room. Alvy wants to put a real plant in it but Rachel thinks a hologram plant would be safer for the kid. A very offended Alvy storms off, saying he’ll plant this on his island instead.
This prompts Rachel to ask him to sell the island since they never go there anyway and Avyl reminds her they don’t because Rachel never wants to go when he asks. It turns out Rachel doesn’t see the point in driving three hours to go to that island when there are nature pods in the city. Avyl snaps and says he refuses to raise a child in a nature pod.
Later Rachel goes to a public pool and can’t stop staring at a pregnant lady. The woman lets her touch her belly and Rachel is amazed by the feeling of the baby’s kicks. When she mentions her own external pod, the lady calls her lucky and explains she wanted to do it like that but she wasn’t selected.
That night Alvy comes home and discovers Rachel has brought the pod without discussing it with him. Rachel explains the pod is finally in its home period so they should spend more time with it. They set it up in the bedroom and when their cat tries to get closer, Rachel takes her away.
The next time the couple tries to get intimate, Alvy can’t do it because he’s uncomfortable having the baby nearby even if it has the window closed. He decides to move the pod to the nursery and trips on his way there, but thankfully he doesn’t drop it. When they go back to bed, they hear the pod making a noise and rush back to the nursery.
Alvy accuses Rachel of forgetting to feed the baby and Rachel snaps, reminding him that he has access to the app too and they should share the responsibility. Sometime later the couple joins a tour around a private school. Since Rachel’s company owns the place, one of the benefits is having part of the tuition covered.
While Linda shows them around, Alvy notices many of the activities are done by robots and the kids just watch. A foreign mother asks Linda if she has accreditation from the Board of Education, so Linda has to explain their government no longer funds education and they must depend on companies. A father mentions he met a pod baby who couldn’t dream and Linda confirms this is a side-effect of the artificial womb.
However she doesn’t see it as a problem since dreaming is useless. One afternoon the office robot tells Rachel that her productivity has decreased, but she ignores it. At home Alvy is taking care of his plants when his phone suddenly receives an alert saying the pod needs food.
He rushes to feed the pod and realizes how satisfying it is, so he chooses to play some whale sounds for the baby before opening the window. Alvy is moved to see how much the child has developed and even talks to them, only to be interrupted by Elena asking a dumb question. Next Alvy puts on the pod carrier and after some struggle he manages to put the pod in it.
From then on Alvy spends all his time with the pod: he reads to it, carries it while preparing a meal or working on his plants, and takes it to the greenhouse and the park. One day during class he asks his students to hug a tree and understand what real nature is like. After class his boss informs him that the greenhouse requires too much money to maintain and he wants to replace the plants with holograms, which leaves Alvy very angry.
That night Alvy cries during a penguin documentary and Rachel wonders if he should be stuck with the pod all day, but Alvy swears he’s fine and doesn’t want to send it back. The next day Rachel finds dirt from the plants on the pod. Later during a dinner party with friends, she tells Alice that she’s worried about Alvy not taking good care of the pod.
Alice says Alvy is just excited to be a father and points out he’s one of the few men who wear the pod at the front. One of their other friends is pregnant and hearing her experience makes Alice jealous. The following morning Rachel wakes up and panics because she can’t find the pod.
As she searches the room she looks at herself in the mirror and notices she’s pregnant. When she tries to show Alvy, she wakes up and realizes it was another dream. From then on she feels very awkward while spending time with the pod.
A few days later Alvy receives some books from her mother about Attachment Therapy, which includes a theory that says spending time with the baby helps them develop empathy. Rachel points out that the entire point of using a pod is detachment, and Alvy replies that mixing different philosophies could be healthy. Rachel finally admits she isn’t feeling well about all this and convinces Alvy to see Eliza together.
During the session, Rachel says they’re failing to find a balanced family time because everything revolves around the pod, and Alvy reminds her to call it a baby. Rachel points out Alvy has been bonding with the baby but she hasn’t, so she thinks she may not be ready to be a mother. An argument ensues and Alvy says this is her hormones talking.
Eliza interrupts their fight to request to be connected to the pod because therapy can start in the uterus. For the next few days, Rachel carries the pod around and feels like she’s being judged in public. At the office, she accidentally hits the pod against the door because she isn’t used to moving with it yet.
After an important meeting, Alice tells Rachel that bringing the pod to work may be a bad idea because they’ll call her “a distracted mom”. Alice picks up the pod and puts it inside a special cupboard where all the parents can leave their pods while they work. In the evening Rachel is so busy working that she forgets the workshop meeting at the Womb Center and arrives late.
Linda invites everyone to share their experiences taking care of the pod before making them put it back in the lab for the last stretch of the process. For the next few days the couple feels very lonely without the baby. One afternoon at the beach, Rachel picks up a blanket from the sand and puts it around herself and the baby, only to wake up from another dream.
The next day she takes some of Alvy’s plants and puts them in the nursery, which makes Alvy happy. Sometime later the HR director tells Rachel that her productivity has been decreasing at alarming speed, but Rachel still denies she has depression. When the fetus is close to being ten months, Linda tells the couple they must choose their preferred date of birth.
It turns out the pod babies are induced at ten months because the pods are in high demand. Rachel wants to take the pod home for the last few days, but Linda says it’s against the rules detailed in the contract they signed. After Linda gifts them some consolation cream, the couple leaves and notices anti-pod protesters at the gate.
Suddenly Alvy rushes back inside to touch a bunch of pods until he finds his and steals it. That night Rachel dreams of getting the baby from a supermarket filled with children for sale. She wakes up feeling very disturbed so she awakens Alvy too and tells him they should have the baby on the island because she doesn't want their child's first moments to be in the Womb Center.
Alvy loves the idea and rushes to the center to tell Linda, who is angry because they stole the pod since it belongs to the company. She explains that the birth only requires a special code, but she still refuses to authorize a home birth because she’s afraid the pod may get damaged. The couple decides to ignore her orders and they travel to the island with the pod and the cat anyway.
They go on walks through the forest together and Rachel can finally appreciate real nature. One night Rachel notices the base isn’t turning on which means the Womb Center remotely disconnected their access. Rachel panics and wants to take the pod back, but Alvy calls it blackmail and reminds her the pod has 48 hours of battery life.
The next morning the couple is woken up by a song coming from the pod to announce the baby is ready to be born. Rachel tries a bunch of codes on the app but none of them work, so Alvy begins opening the pod by force by separating its parts. Now they can finally retrieve the baby and receive them with happy tears and big smiles.
Sometime later Rachel puts all the pod parts in a box and sends them to the company through mail. Afterward she goes home to rest with her husband and her new baby.
