Visitors, Trips, Birthing Classes, and Immigration Woes

We are rather falling behind in our writing of blog posts. Sorry, dear readers! As the end of my pregnancy draws nearer, it seems there are a plethora of tasks as well as hours of research begging to be done. But we will do our best to keep up with the updates. Here are some of the things we've been busy with recently.

First of all, last weekend we had a lovely quick visit with Micah, another dear friend from Columbus. Micah happens to be the younger brother of Soraya, who we saw in London in April. Just four more people to go and we will have been visited by their whole family! Micah, who is studying history at Ohio State University, was part of a school tour of European historical sites. He visited Ireland, England, France, Poland, and Germany, and we were lucky to get to take him out to dinner before he left Paris. We sampled the delicious, if not-so-French, cuisine of Loulou's Friendly Diner (excellent burgers and gluten free buns too!), walked around the Saint Germain des Prés area of Paris (the Middle Ages Museum is cool--it features a Roman-era bathhouse), and walked up to the Panthéon, the huge domed secular mausoleum where notable French citizens are buried. Then naturally we found a fancy chocolaterie, Maison Georges Larnicol, where we oohed and ahhed and Micah bought some treats to take back with him. It's always wonderful to see friends from our old home!

Micah came to visit!

We also spent about 16 hours that same weekend taking a childbirthing and newborn care class that was put on by and for the English-speaking members of Message, a group for anglophone parents in Paris. I will write a post soon with more information about Message, as it's been a lifesaver for us in navigating pregnancy in France. But for now, I'll say that the birthing class was excellent! It was attended by five couples from American, English, Scottish, French, and German backgrounds, and was taught by a lovely and knowledgable English lady who received training from the UK's National Childbirth Trust. It was a great opportunity to meet others in the same boat as us, trying to navigate the confusing waters of grossesse en France. We learned a lot, shared our experiences, hopes, and fears, and made some friends and supporters in the process.

Last week, Rory was finally able to make his re-scheduled trip to the Netherlands. He had been invited to give a presentation at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen back in March, but with the Brussels terrorist attacks happening the day he was meant to leave, his train was cancelled. This time he made it to the Netherlands without incident and enjoyed presenting his research to a group of linguists. Afterwards, he spent a few hours wandering around Amsterdam, being impressed by the half-moon-shaped belts of canals and the huge number of bicycles on the streets.

Canals of Amsterdam

On a less exciting note, I had my long-awaited convocation at the police prefecture for my carte de séjour (my French residence permit). I'd waited for this since my last appointment in January, and at this appointment I should have, in theory, been given the green light to actually receive the real permit in about a month or so. However, we moved to a new flat in a département (an administrative district in France; bigger than a county but smaller than a state) outside of Paris in the intervening months. Since cartes de séjour are handled by each département separately, the best they could do for us was to renew my récépissé for a month (a receipt which allows me to live in France for a couple of months at a time), and tell me to make an appointment at the prefecture in my new département. I suspect the process (ongoing for the last 7 months) will have to be started again almost from scratch at the new place, so I'm not overjoyed about this development. C'est la vie française. 

More soon to come! Have a great week, everyone!

Nous attendons un bébé!

Thanks to the magic of Facebook, most everyone knows by now that we're expecting a baby this August. It was so heartwarming to hear the kind words from our friends around the world, and we are tremendously excited to become parents. Being pregnant is definitely a strange new experience for me, but it feels doubly strange because we are trying to navigate it in a foreign country. Today I thought I would share a little about our experience so far of being pregnant in France.

I'm pretty sure all French babies look like this

First of all, I've had to learn a lot of words in French that would not have otherwise been on my vocab lists. The French word for pregnancy, for example, is rather repugnant.

Grossesse 

Ew. Grossesse? It's like "grossness". And even better, it comes from the word gros, which means fat or large. Grossir is a related verb--it means to fatten up. 

Sure, it's a pretty accurate description of what happens during pregnancy, but for women who are sensitive to the dramatic changes happening in their bodies (let's be honest, we're sensitive to just about anything these days), calling it a "period of fattening up" was probably not the best choice of term. I bet anything some insensitive man came up with it.

In contrast, the etymology of the English word pregnancy is much more polite. The latin simply meant "with child" and "before birth". I'll take pregnancy over grossesse any day.

If you can read French (or want to use Google Translate), here's an amusing post about how terrible French words are regarding pregnancy and childbirth.

Learning the French health care system

As Rory and I are generally quite healthy, when we moved here, I was hoping to avoid French doctors as much as possible. There's the language barrier to start, and then the fact that I was completely unfamiliar with the system of socialized health care they employ here. It's quite different from the British National Health Service (NHS) too, so Rory didn't really know how it worked either. Needless to say, when we learned of the pregnancy, my doctor-avoidance plan went out the window and I started researching like there was no tomorrow.

Here's what we've learned. In very basic terms, one goes to the doctor in France, pays for the visit out of pocket, and is reimbursed for usually a significant percentage of the cost by the sécurité sociale. People also take out mutuelle policies, which are like top-up health insurance plans that will cover what the government doesn't. (We don't have one yet...and you thought figuring out insurance was hard in English!) Nonetheless, it's a pretty reasonable way to do things, and it ensures that people can get excellent health care without an enormous pricetag (I'm looking at you, America). In fact, in a "2000 assessment of world health care systems, the World Health Organization found that France provided the 'close to best overall health care' in the world."

I can testify thus far that my care has been perfectly adequate. I found an OB/GYN within walking distance of our place who is friendly and competent. He even speaks English and does the ultrasounds himself (both unusual for doctors here). I pay him in cash at each monthly visit, and I receive a receipt which I send to the securité sociale offices for reimbursement. At least, that's the plan--I'm still wading through bureaucracy to get myself registered with social security, so eventually I should be reimbursed.

That's a very quick explanation of the French health care system as we currently understand it. I'll share more pregnancy- and French health care-related stories with you in future posts, but I'll leave you with these three wonderful features of grossesse in France that almost make up for the terrible word:

1) All maternity expenses are 100% covered by the government from the 6th month onward.
2) Women and families receive financial support from the government once the baby is born (up to a certain income level).
3) Paid maternity and paternity leave actually exist in this country.

As an American, these things are music to my ears.