Jo Green

Subscribe to my blog

By Jo Green - Mon 29th Aug 2011

 

I was looking back in an old diary a while ago and noticed that it is almost 5 years to the day since I first found out that I was pregnant.

Giving that it was completely unplanned and unexpected, I found myself having to get my head around new words and phrases that I never thought that I would have to use - In English - let alone Spanish !

I dare say that this situation would not be problematic for anyone having lived in Spain for a good few years, or who had been trying for a baby and already have read a number of books in the subject in Spanish, but I had only been in for 18 months at that time, and it caught me completely off guard.

One if the first things I did was scribble down a handful of words and phrases as I came across them, just so I could memorise them and use them again in conversation with the various Doctors and Nurses and Midwives etc... that I knew I would encounter over the coming 9 Months.

It seems a waste to to let my 'valuble research' just fester in the pages of my diary, so I though that I may as well share them with my Blog on the chance that they may be of use to somebody else :

(*Disclaimer : At the time of writing I didn't speak very good Spanish at all, so excuse any mistakes that there are here. They got me by though ! )

Estoy Embarazada (?) : I am Pregnant / am I Pregnant ?

No Quiero Saber el sexo : I Don't want to know the sex (Important as most Spanish will automatically assume that YOU DO want to know - you may wish to write the phrase on your notes)

Cartilla del Embarazo : Your 'Pregnancy Book' (Basically your medical notes, which you keep yourself - unlike in the UK)

Presion de Sangre : Blood Pressure

Analisis de Sangre : Blood Test

Analisis de Orina :Urine test

El Nacimento : The Birth

Vacuna : Vaccination

Analisis de Glucose : Blood Sugar Test

Contraccion : Contractions

Partera / Comadrona : Midwife

Ginecologo : Gynaecologist

I seem to recall that the later stages of my pregnancy were dominated by frequent blood and urine tests - hence the vocab on my list - but otherwise my lasting memory is how easy the whole process was, and how I didn't seem to have any problems making myself understood.