Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour. – Ovid

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

Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything. – William Macneile Dixon