When I was a child I always thought of pregnant women as mute. In my adolescent mind a woman carrying something so sacred was surrounded by a sacred silence of her own. Now, obviously this is insane- "Do you think she's having contractions?" "I don't know, she can't say."- pregnant women need to be able to communicate, maybe even more so than other people. And I had seen and talked to pregnant women, but that image still remained- it sometimes comes back even to this day.
As I was thinking about it more I came to realize that birth is the most marvelous thing about life. I know, you're thinking "Uh, duh." but I just catch on a little late is all. I have to confess that I'm a marveler. I'm "that guy," the one that weirds her sister out by getting a little too excited about a summer rainstorm. I'm the one who stops to smell, well, anything. So when you combine those two things, the fact that, even as a child, I somehow knew the most wonderful thing about life was birth, and my tendency to marvel at all things God-made, you get a twenty-year-old who still sometimes thinks of pregnant women as ensconced in a sacred silence.

"In the silence of the stable there was wisdom finally heard."