Chapter 1: Introduction
Sara pushed her wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose as she sipped the lukewarm drip coffee she always ordered. It was black, unsweetened, bitter—the way she liked it. The morning paper crackled in her fingers as she turned to the local news section, her tired eyes scanning the headlines with practiced efficiency.
A new year, another sensationalized scare. This one about a strange phenomenon sweeping through young women—a mass hysteria, the doctors called it, some kind of psychological contagion where ordinary, career-driven girls suddenly couldn’t stop talking about babies. Impossible. How ridiculous.
She scoffed, crumpling the page slightly before smoothing it back out.
A collective delusion? A social media trend gone awry? Please. She had built her life on logic and self-control, rejecting the idea of motherhood long before she even considered dating seriously. No, this was just another symptom of a culture obsessed with controlling women’s bodies—and their minds.
Across from her, at a small round table cluttered with half-empty mugs and a well-worn copy of *The Economist*, sat Daniel. He was a regular, just like her, always at the café by 8:30 on weekdays, nursing the same oat milk latte with an extra shot.
Sara thought to herself 'as if any woman would suddenly head to a man like him and say put a baby into me'.
She kept her expression neutral as she felt the cold coffee tongue against her lips, scanning the article with a critical eye. The headline read: *"Mysterious 'Pregnancy Trend' Sweeps Young Women—Experts Baffled by Sudden Urge to Conceive."*
She rolled her eyes internally. Another sensationalist headline screaming about the downfall of modern womanhood. As if the female experience could be boiled down to a viral fad. She’d seen the memes, the TikTok trends, the think pieces—all warning about a new wave of "fertility cults" springing up in underground chat rooms. It was all so ridiculous, so *small-town panic*.
According to the article the women didn't just have babies, their bodies and minds completely changed. Sara laughed internally. As if that could actually happen... A woman's body doesn't just change. That's insane. No biological process could reshape a woman overnight— hormones don’t just flip like a switch. What a joke.