The story takes place at a maternity ward and follows three women that are there for very different reasons: the withdrawn and depressed Cecilia had a very bloody and earth-shattering miscarriage, the young and flakey Hjördis tried to kill her unborn and the warm and motherly Stina eagerly and enthusiastically awaits the birth of her baby. Cecilia is married to an introvert man whom she loves but, after the miscarriage, she suspects he has never loved her. Hjördis wants nothing to do with her baby, the father of the child is interested in neither her nor the child, and she doesn’t want the baby to be born into this awful world. In contrast to them both is Stina, she has a loving husband and sees the pregnancy and the baby as the meaning of her life, to be a mother has been her lifelong dream. Together they help each other with the torments, sorrow and hardships life has forced them to endure.