Birth is the epicenter of women's power.
Ani Difranco - Keyword(s): , Women

Birth is a mystery. Words are not enough.
Marie O'Connor - Keyword(s):

I begin to love this little creature, and to anticipate his birth as a fresh twist to a knot which I do not wish to untie.
Mary Wollstonecraft - Keyword(s):

Now my belly is as noble as my heart.
Gabriela Mistral - Keyword(s):

Pregnancy is getting company inside one's skin.
Maggie Scarf - Keyword(s):

God schedules a birthday, not man.
Robert A. Bradley - Keyword(s):

Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear.
Jane Weideman - Keyword(s):

Birth is as safe as life gets.
Harriette Hartigan - Keyword(s):

People are giving birth underwater now. They say it's less traumatic for the baby because it's in water. But certainly more traumatic for the other people in the pool.
Elayne Boosler - Keyword(s): , People , Babies

The power and intensity of your contractions cannot be stronger than you, because it is you.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding.
Frank A. Oski - Keyword(s):

Love and pregnancy and riding on a camel cannot be hid.
Arabic Proverb - Keyword(s): Love

Amnesia: The condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have sex again.
Joyce Armor - Keyword(s):

Never go to your high school reunion pregnant or they will think that is all you have done since you graduated.
Erma Bombeck - Keyword(s):

If men were equally at risk from this condition - if they knew their bellies might swell as if they were suffering from end-stage cirrhosis, that they would have to go nearly a year without a stiff drink, a cigarette, or even an aspirin, that they would be subject to fainting spells and unable to fight their way onto commuter trains - then I am sure that pregnancy would be classified as a sexually transmitted disease and abortions would be no more controversial than emergency appendectomies.
Barbara Ehrenreich - Keyword(s):

The experience of birth is vast. It is a diverse tapestry woven by cultural customs, shaped in personal choices, affected by biological factors, marked by political circumstances. Yet the nature of birth itself prevails in elegant design of simple complexity.
Harriette Hartigan - Keyword(s):

Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside.
Rita Rudner - Keyword(s):

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I'd have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
Erma Bombeck - Keyword(s):

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
Dave Barry - Keyword(s): , Women

There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don't ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it.
Sheryl Feldman - Keyword(s):

Many Western doctors hold the belief that we can improve everything, even natural childbirth in a healthy woman. This philosophy is the philosophy of people who think it deplorable that they were not consulted at the creation of Eve, because they would have done a better job.
Gerrit-Jan Kloosterman - Keyword(s):

A strong intention, a relaxed body and an open mind are the main ingredients for an active birth.
Janet Balaskas - Keyword(s):

God's interest in the human race is nowhere better evinced than in obstetrics.
Martin H. Fischer - Keyword(s): Babies

A friend asked her doctor if a woman should have children after thirty-five. I said, "Thirty-five children is enough for any woman."
Gracie Allen - Keyword(s):

Just as a woman's heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth.
Virginia DiOrio - Keyword(s):

If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters.
Nora Ephron - Keyword(s):

If nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternatively, there would never be more than three in a family.
Lawrence Housman - Keyword(s): Parents

The only time a women wishes she was a year older is when she's expecting a baby.
Mary Marsh - Keyword(s):

Natural childbirth has evolved to suit the species, and if mankind chooses to ignore her advice and interfere with her workings we must not complain about the consequences. We have only ourselves to blame.
Margaret Jowitt - Keyword(s):

Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong.
Peggy Vincent - Keyword(s):

Feeling fat lasts nine months but the joy of becoming a mom lasts forever.
Nikki Dalton - Keyword(s):

The shamans are forever yacking about their snake-oil "miracles." I prefer the Real McCoy - a pregnant woman.
Robert Heinlein - Keyword(s):

We need nothing less than a revolution in our attitudes towards conception, pregnancy, birth and parenting.
Sophie Style - Keyword(s):

Giving birth and being born brings us into the essence of creation, where the human spirit is courageous and bold and the body, a miracle of wisdom.
Harriette Hartigan - Keyword(s):

Pregnancy is a disease from which you recover in 18 years and 9 months.
Carrie Latet - Keyword(s):

Labor is the closest a woman may ever be to the threshold between life and death while she is still very much alive.
Anne Frye - Keyword(s):

I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don't seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.
Emo Philips - Keyword(s):

On the one hand, we'll never experience childbirth. On the other hand, we can open all our own jars.
Bruce Willis - Keyword(s): Men

Everything grows rounder and wider and weirder, and I sit here in the middle of it all and wonder who in the world you will turn out to be.
Carrie Fisher - Keyword(s):

In the pregnancy process I have come to realize how much of the burden is on the female partner. She's got a construction zone going on in her belly.
Al Roker - Keyword(s):

A ship under sail and a big-bellied woman, are the handsomest two things that can be seen common.
Benjamin Franklin - Keyword(s):

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 - Keyword(s):

If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing.
Agnes Sallet Von Tannenberg - Keyword(s):

Part of being a parent is rolling with the punches, so consider an unexpected pregnancy the universe's way of helping you to learn to do that.
Heather Wittenberg - Keyword(s):

Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.
Sam Levenson - Keyword(s):

Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star.
Larry Barretto - Keyword(s):

Birth takes a woman's deepest fears about herself and show her that she is stronger than them.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

I realize why women die in childbirth - it's preferable.
Sherry Glaser - Keyword(s):

Love is all fun and games until someone loses an eye or gets pregnant.
Jim Cole - Keyword(s): Love

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 - Keyword(s):

By far the most common craving of pregnant women is not to be pregnant.
Phyllis Diller - Keyword(s):

We repeatedly tell patients we are not in a hurry; there are no trains to catch and we don't care when the baby comes, only how! A doctor who is in a hurry does not belong in the field of obstetrics. As my chief pointed out, "An obstetrician should have a big rear end and the good sense to sit calmly thereupon and let nature take its course."
Robert A. Bradley - Keyword(s):

Birthing is the most profound initiation to spirituality a woman can have.
Robin Lim - Keyword(s):

Childbirth provided the drama I craved, the thrill of peeking over the primal edge of creation, the rush of the unexpected.
Peggy Vincent - Keyword(s):

They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth. They can... if you hit them in the goolies with a cricket bat for fourteen hours.
Jo Brand - Keyword(s):

There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation.
Pamela S. Nadav - Keyword(s):

You do a lot of growing up when you're pregnant. It's suddenly like, "Yikes. Here it is, folks. Playtime is over."
Connie Fioretto - Keyword(s):

Attending births is like growing roses. You have to marvel at the ones that just open up and bloom at the first kiss of the sun but you wouldn't dream of pulling open the petals of the tightly closed buds and forcing them to blossom to your time line.
Gloria Lemay - Keyword(s):

Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Ina May Gaskin - Keyword(s):

The childbirth class neglected to teach you a critical skill. How to swear, breathe and count all at the same time.
Linda Fiterman - Keyword(s):

I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.
Michel Odent - Keyword(s):

A baby is something you carry inside you for nine months, in your arms for three years, and in your heart until the day you die.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

When I had reached my term, I looked like a rat dragging a stolen egg.
Colette - Keyword(s):

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 - Keyword(s):

Let us make pregnancy an occasion when we appreciate our female bodies.
Merete Leonhardt-Lupa - Keyword(s):

You are pregnant and you are powerful. You are bold and you are beautiful. Go forward in your boldness, in your beauty and in your connectedness. Trust your body to birth and know that the collective power of women worldwide will be with you.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

Childbirth is an experience in a woman's life that holds the power to transform her forever. Passing through these powerful gates - in her own way - remembering all the generations of women who walk with her.... She is never alone.
Suzanne Arms - Keyword(s):

The effort to separate the physical experience of childbirth from the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of this event has served to disempower and violate women.
Mary Rucklos Hampton - Keyword(s):

I think that carrying a baby inside you is like running as fast as you can. It feels like finally letting go and filling yourself up to the wildest limits.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

The dreams that we have in pregnancy are tainted with the worries and joys of pregnancy and the changing roles of our lives.
Robin Elise Weiss - Keyword(s):

It seems an insult to nature and to the Creator to imagine that pregnancy was ever intended to be a sickness.
E.B. Duffey - Keyword(s):

In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.
Myla Kabat-Zinn - Keyword(s):

Rigid plans work best if you're building a skyscraper; with something as mysteriously human as giving birth, it's best, both literally and figuratively, to keep your knees bent.
Mark Sloan - Keyword(s):

We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong.
Laura Stavoe Harm - Keyword(s):

Pregnancy and birth knit womankind together. Help weave a gorgeous thread to add to the fabric. Be supportive. Be kind. Be wise. Be open.
Desirre Andrews - Keyword(s):

There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we.
Ina May Gaskin - Keyword(s):

Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
E.B. White - Keyword(s):

Pregnancy is a process that invites you to surrender to the unseen force behind all life.
Judy Ford - Keyword(s):

Think of stretch marks as pregnancy service stripes.
Joyce Armor - Keyword(s):

In the moments of labor and birth, all the forces of the universe are flowing through a woman's body.
Sandra K. MorningStar - Keyword(s):

Giving birth is not a matter of pushing, expelling the baby, but of yielding, surrendering to birth energy.
Marie Reid - Keyword(s):

Birth goes best if it is not intruded upon by strange people and strange events. It goes best when a woman feels safe enough and free enough to abandon herself to the process.
Penny Armstrong - Keyword(s):

Birth matters. It brings us into being, on many levels.
Ananda Lowe - Keyword(s):

Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers... strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.
Barbara Katz Rothman - Keyword(s):

Those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. Their other children grow into manhood and womanhood, and suffer all the changes of mortality; but this one alone is rendered an immortal child; for death has arrested it with its kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.
Anonymous - Keyword(s):

Pregnant women! They had that weird frisson, an aura of magic that combined awkwardly with an earthy sense of duty.
Ruth Morgan - Keyword(s):

All natural birth has a purpose and a plan; who would think of tearing open the chrysalis as the butterfly is emerging? Who would break the shell to pull the chick out?
Marie F. Mongan - Keyword(s):

I feel cheated never being able to know what it's like to get pregnant, carry a child and breastfeed.
Dustin Hoffman - Keyword(s):

In achieving the depersonalization of childbirth and at the same time solving the problem of pain, our society may have lost more than it has gained. We are left with the physical husk; the transcending significance has been drained away.
Sheila Kitzinger - Keyword(s):

VITA MUTARI - the literal translation from Latin to English is "Life Transformation." That is the closest thing I could think of the feeling of labor/birth... what you are feeling isn't pain, it's life transformation.
Stephanie Soderblom - Keyword(s):

Childbirth was probably easier for most women in early cultures, especially in hunter-gatherer societies, where everyone was accustomed to physical labor and supple and fit from daily activity.
Suzanne Arms - Keyword(s):

We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement. The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love.
Grantly Dick-Read - Keyword(s):

Women today not only possess genetic memory of birth from a thousand generations of women, but they are also assailed from every direction by information and misinformation about birth.
Valerie El Halta - Keyword(s):

The experience profoundly changed my perspective. In the hospital, I hadn't perceived the anxiety and foreboding that permeated birth until I experienced the impact of its absence among the midwives. The peace, wonder, and intimacy were infinitely greater. What a compelling difference!
Heidi Rinehart - Keyword(s):

Giving birth is a transformation and it doesn't matter whether you've had eight babies before. It's still a transformation the next time you have another baby, because you are no longer the same woman you were before you had that baby.
Penny Handford - Keyword(s):

Miscarriages are labor, miscarriages are birth. To consider them less dishonors the woman whose womb has held life, however briefly.
Kathryn Miller Ridiman - Keyword(s):

Whether your pregnancy was meticulously planned, medically coaxed, or happened by surprise, one thing is certain - your life will never be the same.
Catherine Jones - Keyword(s):