A little boy...

There are some words that just mean more in your mother tongue, no matter how much you dominate your second or third language. 'I love you' is a perfect example. When I was around 20 weeks pregnant, I discovered one more. My husband and I had gone to the doctor’s office for another ultrasound, and this one would tell us the baby’s sex. In general with our doctor we spoke Catalan, switching to Spanish if there was something I needed clarified (my Spanish is slightly better than my Catalan). This was fine with me and after nine years in Barcelona, I was pretty fluent in both. Later that evening, both my husband and I shared the news with our families. There was a lot of excitement about our pregnancy – the first grandchild on both sides - and knowing the sex made it seem that little bit closer for everyone. When I told my mother she would be having a grandson, she got emotional, “a little boy”, she said, almost in wonder. It’s hard to explain, but hearing it said back to me, in my own language, made me emotional as well. After spending the whole day telling everyone in Spanish and Catalan that I was having a baby boy, saying it and hearing it in English was what really made the news feel real.