Great expectations

Apologies for the lengthy delay since my last blog. As those of you who know me will know, there has been a very good reason.

Suffice to say this blog has been incubating for a while. Over the last few months, I've been exposed to a whole new lexicon – one very unfamiliar to me: the language of pregnancy.

Unfortunately, a few of the new words I've added to my vocabulary have been rather too medical for comfort. Hooked up to a glucose drip after my last pukeathon (sadly not a new word to me), my obstetrican declaimed solemnly that I was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum. As this essentially means 'chucking up a lot while pregnant', I wasn't particularly impressed. It struck me as a description of my symptoms rather than a diagnosis. I was half tempted to respond 'yes, I know, I just told you that'. Similarly I'm currently eagerly anticipating developing the important-sounding linea nigra on my tummy. I'm looking forward to finding out why a simple black line is so special that it deserves a Latin moniker. Particularly as apparently it's not black.

But happily most of my new words are much jollier in their connotations. And much more Anglo-Saxon. In fact the relationship between the medical and the traditional in pregnancy is rarely clearer than in the language. Believe it or not, I've been given an expected date of confinement, when presumably I will be shackled to a chaise longue, perhaps wearing an empire-line organza and looking becomingly pale while occasionally whispering 'oh my'. I am currently experiencing – this one I really love – the quickening. This is not, sadly, a Stephen King horror movie, but the word that's still used for the first baby movements that you can feel. (These fidgets are currently still a novelty, causing me to exclaim 'oh!' and stare excitedly at my belly in the middle of meetings. Perhaps I can justify the consternation by saying 'oh don't worry, it's just the quickening'.)

Midwife is a particular favourite. It has survived virtually unchanged from the Old English mid-wif – someone who is with the woman (not necessarily the wife, I should point out). It probably makes male midwives even more unexpected, but I just love the word. There's no implication of authority there, no doctoring or nursing to be administered. Just someone who's with you.

And can someone please come up with a better word for my current 'condition'? Pregnant implies someone who has been impregnated, which not only makes me feel slightly squeamish, but is a very passive notion. I guess at least I'm not gravide or embarazada. (How does that work? I'm currently 19 weeks embarrassed?) I'm not particularly keen on being great with child either, nor in the club, nor up the duff (apparently related to plum duff, believe it or not), nor any of the other dig-in-the-ribs epithets. I tried expecting with an elderly relative recently (partly because you can say we're expecting slightly more comfortably than we're pregnant, which always carries an undertone of alien abduction for me), only to be greeted with a lengthy (pregnant) pause while he waited for me to fill in the object of my sentence.

Anyway, there's more discovery to do as I waddle onwards on this strange new journey: we're currently being exercised by the differences between a pushchair, a buggy, a stroller, a pram and (strictly for the experts, this one) a pramette. Even here the pseudo science is creeping in, and we're being exhorted to buy a flexible travel system. All of which appear to be much the same thing. Ditto crib, cradle, cot and (I kid you not) baby nest. Sigh.