A Pregnant Vocabulary
Submitted by
Vanessa Antoine
Pregnancy enlightened me and my husband to a whole new vocabulary that people who have never been through a pregnancy probably know nothing about. Along with laughable VHS films of women in oversize, rose-tinted glasses giving birth to children who are now in their 20s, our birthing classes were chock-full of new words, such as perineum, episiotomy, Kegel, placenta and more. Scary as most of those words seemed, there was one word my husband and I absolutely took advantage of: meconium.
For those of you who don't know, meconium is the medical term for a newborn's poop. Not big cursers, my husband and I used this word to no end. Our conversations usually included sentences like "I feel like meconium today" or "I had a real meconiumitty day" or "I'll be back. I have to take a meconium."
Pregnancy, with all its quirky surprises, offers an education you can't find at any university. In fact, pregnancy is a university all its own. Pregnant women and future daddies will be educated in Breathing 101, Pushing for Beginners, Focusing on Happy Places 101 and my personal favorite, Pregnancy Terminology. Yes, pregnancy offers quite the education, but parents-to-be take heed: While you can eventually pay off student loans, you'll be paying for this meconium for the rest of your life.
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