El embarazo fue difícil.

No. This is a very common false friend for English speakers.

• embarazo = pregnancy
• embarrassment is usually vergüenza, and sometimes bochorno depending on the context

So El embarazo fue difícil is about a pregnancy, not about feeling embarrassed.

Because embarazo is a masculine noun in Spanish, so it takes el.

A lot of Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine, and embarazo follows that common pattern.

• el embarazo
• un embarazo

Even though the thing itself is connected with a woman’s body, the grammatical gender of the noun is still masculine. Grammatical gender does not always match biological sex.

Fue is the third-person singular preterite form of ser.

Here it means was.

So the structure is:

• el embarazo = the pregnancy
• fue = was
• difícil = difficult

One small thing to notice: fue can also be a form of ir, but in this sentence it is clearly from ser because the sentence is describing what the pregnancy was like.

This is a very common question because both can translate as was.

In this sentence, fue difícil presents the pregnancy as a completed whole. It sounds like the speaker is looking back on the pregnancy and summarising it.

• El embarazo fue difícil = The pregnancy was difficult

If you said El embarazo era difícil, it would sound more like description or background, often inside a larger story.

For example:

• El embarazo era difícil, pero ella seguía trabajando.
  The pregnancy was difficult, but she kept working.

So:

• fue = completed, viewed as a whole
• era = ongoing description, background, or repeated situation

Both are possible in different contexts, but fue difícil is very natural when giving an overall judgment about the pregnancy.

Yes, you might hear that, but it is not exactly the same.

• fue difícil uses ser and gives a general characterization: the pregnancy was difficult
• estuvo difícil uses estar and sounds more situational, more like it turned out to be difficult or was difficult during that period

In many contexts, fue difícil is the more neutral and standard choice for a broad statement like this.

Because difícil is an adjective that has the same singular form for masculine and feminine nouns.

So you get:

• el embarazo difícil
• la situación difícil

The adjective does change in the plural:

• difícil = singular
• difíciles = plural

Examples:

• El embarazo fue difícil.
• Las semanas fueron difíciles.

They are different kinds of words:

• embarazo = a noun meaning pregnancy
• embarazada = an adjective meaning pregnant for a woman

Examples:

• El embarazo fue difícil. = The pregnancy was difficult.
• Ella estaba embarazada. = She was pregnant.

For a man, Spanish normally says:

• embarazado only in special or figurative uses, not for ordinary human pregnancy

So for normal usage:

• embarazo = pregnancy
• estar embarazada = to be pregnant

Yes. In this sentence, difícil could naturally be translated as either:

• The pregnancy was difficult
• The pregnancy was hard

Both are good English translations. The best choice depends on tone and context.

In standard Peninsular Spanish, a helpful approximation is:

el em-ba-RA-tho fue di-FI-cil

A few key pronunciation points:

• z in embarazo is pronounced like the th in think in most of Spain
• the stress in embarazo is on ra
• fue is usually one syllable
• the written accent in difícil shows the stress is on fi

So the main stresses are:

• em-ba-RA-zo
• FUE
• di-FÍ-cil

Normally, no. In standard Spanish, you would usually need the article here.

• El embarazo fue difícil = natural and correct

Without el, it sounds incomplete or unnatural in ordinary speech. Spanish often uses articles where English may or may not use them, especially when a noun is the subject of the sentence.

The normal order is:

• El embarazo fue difícil

That is the most neutral and natural order.

You could change the order for emphasis in some contexts, but it would sound marked or literary. For example:

• Difícil fue el embarazo

This is grammatically possible, but much less common in everyday speech. For learners, the normal order is the safest choice.