some time ago, bethany sent me an excerpt from The Privilege of Being a Woman.  it is a beautiful description of conception and birth--

Husband and wife are called upon to collaborate with God in the creation of another human being. But they must remember that being creatures they can only "procreate", they cannot create. 

The special role granted to women in procreation...is highlighted by the fact that as soon as she has conceived (and conception takes place hours after the marital embrace), God creates the soul of the new child in her body. This implies a direct "contact" between Him and the mother-to-be... This contact gives to the female body a note of sacredness, for any closeness between God and one of His creatures is stamped by His Holy Seal. This divine "touch" is once again a special female privilege that every pregnant woman should gratefully acknowledge. 

Childbirth is also an event basked in sacredness. Granted that the agonizing pains that many women endure are a dire consequence of original sin, the beauty of Catholic teaching makes it clear that her womanly travails and cries of agony, which precede the coming into the world of another human person, have a deeply symbolic meaning. Just as Jesus Christ has suffered the agonizing pains of the crucifixion in order to reopen for us the gates of heaven, so the woman has received the costly privilege of suffering so that another child made to God's image and likeness can enter into the world.