Fertility drops 20 percent after 30.

No matter what the politicians in Ottawa say about population control, I've decided I'm going to be a mother. We might be past peak oil, our air poisoned, our water even worse, but my biological clock is ticking, louder every heaving, lonely night, and more insistent with every passing day, leaving me shaking with desire for a baby like a leaf in a heavy wind. So I don't care if I have to live on the other side of the border fence, I've already signed up for the fertility testing and registered with the district as a potential partner-parent, available for insemination, contingent on mutual RBT-H:D results. Wish me luck!

the bureaucratic phenomenon of the baby ministry

Wow! The Ministry of Social Engineering medical adjudicator has approved my application for baby benefits, much, much faster than anticipated! Apparently Parliament just passed a bill giving precedence to the development of registered parent lists to combat the grim business reality of an alarmingly low birth rate, even while giving a lot of lip on TV to synthetics, rejuvenetics, and "aging gracefully" to avert the financial crisis. (I hate those posters, don't you? Always at the bus-stop, next to all the other ads targeted at poor people.) This is all so unreal, like I've fallen down a rabbit hole. Never in my life has the government ever been so helpful! They've even given me a chit to register with a far more luxurious creche than my income bracket would allow, because of my high test scores and because I'm such prime birthing age.

Next step: asking the new partner how he feels about the whole thing.