Wiktionary
birth pangs
n. 1 (plural of birth pang English) 2 (context by extension English) The difficulty associated with a new project.
WordNet
birth pangs
n. a regularly recurrent spasm of pain that is characteristic of childbirth [syn: labor pains, labour pains]
Usage examples of "birth pangs".
In the universe, space travel may be the normal birth pangs of an otherwise dying race.
You stop at the pangs, Without realising that they are birth pangs.
It was fat, its sides bulging and convulsing obscenely, as if it were in the throes of birth pangs.
On the road from Ebshausen to the palace at Thersa, Sapientia felt her first birth pangs.