Looking for a SF story regarding women growing things in their wombs

I'm looking for the title and author of a short story or novelette that I read quite some time ago.

The main characters are two young women. One is taking correspondence courses, and is constantly being berated by the other one for hoping to rise above her station. They go out to pick up young men, to sleep with them, to get pregnant.

It's not a normal sort of pregnancy, though. The men have some sort of 'coded semen' which grow something other than a child in the woman's womb. It ends up being a product of some kind, which earns the woman money when it is 'born'. The one woman is very careful about who she chooses, as she can only do this so many times. The other... isn't so careful.

At the end, the careful, studious woman achieves what she has been working for - a letter from a government organisation that permits her to become the mother to a human being.

Thank you for reading my question. I've been looking for this story for years, now.

Answer

This has been significantly edited from my first answer. At first I believed that this was an Anne McCaffrey short story, as shipbrains are alluded to in the story. However, this is 'Piece Work' by David Brin, originially published in 1988 and then included in his 1994 Otherness anthology. The main character, Io, is the dedicated professional surrogate who hopes to become a mother; her friend Perseph settles for 'placental jobbing'.

The confusion was in the fact that shipbrains existed in both McCaffrey's stories and in this one; however, Brin has these entities bred on purpose, whereas Mccaffrey's brain ship characters suffered from congenital physical defects or accidents in early childhood.

Comments

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