Symbiosis

Abby is a black woman in her late 20s/early 30s and her teenage sister Brianna's primary caretaker. Brianna was involved in a car accident a while ago and is in need of a life-saving kidney transplant. Because the two sisters aren't well-off financially and have no health insurance, Abby struggles to pay for the surgery. Abby finds comfort in a support group for people who have relatives with medical problems or have suffered medical trauma themselves. Lucas and Steff, a wealthy white couple whose plans to have children were destroyed by Steff's ovarian cancer, are also members of the support group. After the two see Abby look for jobs at the job board of the community center, they approach her and invite her over for dinner. At dinner, the couple tell Abby about their desire to have a child via a surrogate mother and offer Abby $100,000 to be their surrogate. Abby has to consider the offer. At home, she tells her sister Brianna about it, who isn't particularly keen on the idea. Brianna doesn't want Abby to enter a contract to enslave herself and lend her womb to a white woman, she compares surrogacy to a modern form of slavery. Brianna also feels bad that Abby has to take on so much just for her. Abby already works several jobs, one of them being in retail/customer service, to pay for her and her sister. A terrible experience with a customer prompts her to accept Lucas and Steff's offer. She meets the two at their house again and they have a few drinks to celebrate. At the end of the night, quite intoxicated, Abby signs a contract to be their surrogate. Lucas and Steff offer Abby to move into a special, paid-for "retreat" for the duration of her pregnancy, together with Brianna, who will be surrounded by medical professionals. Abby feels bad for accepting yet another offer, but does so anyways. Abby meets with Lucas and Steff's private doctor, Dr. Shaidan, who conducts the gestational surrogacy, planting Steff's fertilized egg in Abby's uterus. In the waiting room, Abby meets another woman who appears to be pregnant as well. Abby asks her about her due date and she says she doesn't know yet, she has been pregnant for over a year and is waiting for her baby's "decision" to come out. Steff approaches Abby with a "plan" she has made for her: she wants to put Abby on a strict diet that is supposed to strengthen the baby as well as a schedule filled with daily activities that Abby has to participate in, according to her contract.