For far too many, pregnancy and birth is still something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves. – Sheila Kitzinger, The Experience of Childbirth

To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and distressingly inhabited. Soul and spirit are stretched – along with body – making pregnancy a time of transition, growth, and profound beginnings. – Anne Christian Buchanan and Debra K. Kingsporn, The Quickening Heart: A Journal

Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour. – Ovid