Rome, 1947. Images of the war still burn in the eyes of the people. In men's hearts, the determination to raise a city and country from the ashes. In women's souls and bodies, the primordial urgency to rebuild families. In the maternity ward of a hospital, Nina finds eight other women waiting to give birth. Little does she know how profound this encounter will be. Though for the moment total strangers, each woman is moved to tell her story. One by one as these life stories interweave, a magnificent fresco emerges, it is the story of woman, all women. Suddenly they are not alone. There is understanding, solidarity, friendship from the others, never judgment. A fearful beautiful girl pregnant by a foreign soldier; a bitter unfulfilled wife who turned to the emptiness of promiscuity; women who have only known privileged luxury or others only worlds of hardship and deprivation. As these lives of hope, sacrifice, love, abandonment are shared, the universe of the nine women becomes much like a womb itself. Differences dissolve and complicity begins to form a precious bond. For Nina, the discovery of each story of simple courage and the ardent desire to live becomes a source from which she will draw for the rest of her life.