My parents flew back to Australia on the weekend so I’m left feeling a bit more alone again. I think I’ve mentioned this before but, without mum and dad around, my little English-speaking enclave narrows and the isolation of not knowing the local lingo presses more heavily. I guess it’s time to sort out some more German lessons!

Thinking about words – new, old, unusual and familiar – I wanted to write a list of pregnancy-related words you barely hear at other times of your life. I kinda like the way so many unusual small things have their own term: like the first poo your baby does and the early milk they get. I also realised that while waiting for this baby, I actually really dislike the word “pregnant” – it seems a fat, awkward sort of term. Particularly when people would use it as a verb: How pregnant do you look now? Ugh. The German word for it, Schwanger, is not much better, although it does have a sort of swingin’ appeal.

Here’s some interesting words around pregnancy and childbirth I do like:

• trimester
• perenium
• meconium
• colostrum
• lochia
• letdown
• Hebamme (German for midwife)
• Schwangerschaft (German for pregnancy – somehow less blunt than Schwanger)
• Stillen (German for breastfeeding)
• Geburtshilfe (German for giving birth / obstetrics)

Got any other good ones? Let me know in the comments below…