Someone Else is Living Your Parisian Dream

According to the Babycenter, Notre Petite Cacahuete (pronounced, “Note Petite Ca-ca-wett or Our Little Peanut) is the size of a kidney bean; moving around in my belly at approximately 5/8 of an inch long. Sounds more like an inch worm to me, but I suppose it doesn’t help the conjuring of mommy-love fantasies, this inch - worm - in - her - belly image. Or that it’s using her body as a host, awaiting the day that it’s grown big and strong enough to climb out of her hoo-hoo.

Babycenter tells me that the eyelids practically cover the eyes and the fingers and toes, which are still a bit webbed and growing longer. The arms are growing and the hands are now flexed at the wrist and meet over the heart. The knee joints have formed, and the feet may be long enough to meet in front of the body. With the trunk straightening out, the head is more erect. Breathing tubes extend from the throat to the branches of the still developing lungs. The nerve cells in the brain are also branching out to connect with one another, forming primitive neural pathways.

The last lines about tubes extending and cells branching to connect remind me of a Dean Koontz-ish book that I read long ago. It described the end of the human race as computers take over people, internal wires extending from the CPUs, reaching for and fusing with the brain of the user.

My Doctor pointed out the rapidly pulsating dot that is Notre Petite Cacahuete’s heartbeat on the sonogram screen. It moved me and I could almost understand why that crazy little Tom Cruise would want one all for himself.

Fortunately, I’m not nauseous, but I’m exhausted all.the.time, particularly but not exclusively, at the end of the day after French classes. Whereas I’ve never been a napper or excessive sleeper in the past, my favorite place in the world has become the bed. I asked The Husband as I snuggled in last night, “Know where my second favorite place is, babe?” He answered with correctly and with certainty, “The couch.”

To balance my time between sleep and things that need to get done around the apartment, I cook extra for each meal, making sure that there’s enough food for a couple of nights. If My Husband is very, very, very lucky, I’ll have the energy to cook two nights in a row, assuring that he can alternate leftover meals. Everything else gets done….when it gets done, which means that our place is never ready for guests. Unfortunately, its getting unbearable, and we’ll be hiring someone to come over once every two weeks for the big clean ups.

My doctor asked whether I take any medication regularly, beyond Prenatal Vitamins with 400mg of folic acid (Mine have 800mg and she said it was fine). I have horrible allergies to something in the outdoors of Paris, I told her. She advised that I take a plane away from here as quickly as I can, and if that isn’t possible, which is understandable, Claritin is safe runner up to take during pregnancy.

“This belly is new. Is it normal to show so early on?” I asked my doctor. On the date of my first prenatal exam, yesterday, I was 8 weeks and 5 days pregant. She answered that small people tend to show earlier. One of my best friends in the SF bay area, now at 17 weeks, is still barely showing; she hasn’t gained weight either, she says. She also relayed to me, through her own baby research, that it may because of how I retain the fluids; I haven’t weighed myself in years, but with this new belly, I must’ve packed on a few extra pounds or 10. Whichever it is, I’m straddling this line of pregnant or not as a thin person with a questionably protruding belly and I’m hoping that people will ask whether I’m pregnant or packing it on.

I’ve been exhausted, and in the midst of the summer heat, I hibernate like a bear in the winter. I’ve never been a napper in the past, but I look forward to after-class naps and doing nothing these days. I skipped class this morning, opting for more sleep after a total 5 hour journey to, at and from the doctor yesterday. I awoke at 1pm from a “nap” this morning and dragged myself into a sitting position with the false motivation to get showered, dressed and off to check out maternity and baby gear at les soldes. Unable to rise, I allayed my guilt by telling myself that the baby isn’t due til February, so I’ll just catch the January sales if I can’t drag myself out within the next 15 days. It’s an art to have convincing dialogues with oneself where one successfully massages their own guilt to the point of rendering it a soft blob of non-existence.

I waited an hour and a half past my appointment time for my new OBGYN to see me yesterday. I was a bit apprehensive, hoping that she’s a fluent English Speaker who speaks, as opposed to the “English speaking” eye doctor who grunted a total of 15 words at me, ending our little rendezvous with an impatient , “Yes your eyes are normal,” in response to my expectant question, asked with a raised eyebrow and open hands, palms up, ” So…..? My eyes are ok? They’re normal? Do I need to know anything???” By the way, that appointment cost me 100 euros. I don’t know about the other doctors, but don’t see a male eye doctor by the name of Buisson at the American Hospital. You won’t get much of a check up if you care about your eyes. I would love to hear other experiences, as this was my first eye check up in France. Are the machines deceivingly advanced or was my doctor just a negligent and completely lazy m*therf*cker who was 7 minutes late to lunch with my 100 euros?

The OBGYN that I saw yesterday at the American Hospital, and will likely continue to see, isn’t one to go to if you like hand petting, coddling and a gentle bedside manner. Actually, she may turn on the gentle manner for certain folks, but I didn’t even see the light switch. From the East Coast of the US, she wears the stereotypical qualities; a straight shooter with a dash of cynicism, sarcasm and a sense of humour about important situations, which I witnessed in the form of her secretary’s head poking into the office 7 times during our appointment. She answered my questions candidly, but was also probably appreciative that I didn’t ask too many. I’d forgotten them all, as I was reminded in a conversation with My Husband later. The one question that I did ask out of curiousity though, my latest obsession, is why there aren’t more abnormally formed babies walking around France/ Paris given all of the second hand smoke that pregnant moms and children are forced to breathe. She answered that the effects more closely resemble allergies and asthma, adding, “Do you notice dark circles under people’s eyes around here?” This is supposedly another effect, which I instantly validated for myself because I have always both; dark circles under my eyes and allergies; my dad was a heavy smoker in the home and car for a very, very long time.

She further informed that the clothes of a smoker and those who inhabit heavy smoking areas, should be changed before holding a baby, as their system is so incredibly sensitive and susceptible to their surroundings. They would inhale and absorb the smoke off of the clothes, even if the person wasn’t actively smoking at that moment. Impressed, I double checked this information with one of my currently pregnant best friends back home, who verified the information by stating that she’s already told her non-smoking, but cologne-splashing Husband that he’s not allowed wear his colognes anymore.

Further on the topic of second hand smoke, I read this personal account on a forum,

“Not only does smoking correlate with SIDS but when I was pregnant with my son, we were living with my boyfriend’s parents. His dad was a heavy smoker and when I delivered, the umbilical cord was so thin they said they could see through it and since my son was 6 lbs when he was born, they said it had caused him to lose a lot of nutrients resulting in his small size. Because of the umbilical cord being so thin, the nurses told the paedatrician that I had smoked through my pregnancy even though I have not smoked a cigarette in my life! They said if the umbilical cord had been any thinner it could have lead to a possible miscarriage.”

As the age and more persistent thoughts of motherhood encroach, I sense the paranoid Anti-Smoking American/worrier in me emerging for the first time. This is a strange feeling, as I’ve never worried about much, but I’ll someday have to memorize a dialogue for My Husband’s smoking friends, “Hey. I don’t mean to be rude, but you know how I feel about smoke and now, I’m more neurotic than ever. Would you mind washing your hands before touching the kid….?”

While you’re at it, would you mind just popping into this chamber? It’s a sandblaster, but I’ll set it on gentle cycle/rapid. That should get the smoke out of your hair and internal system…..Just wanna keep my kid safe, y’know?

Update:  Costs of my two visits at the Hospital. According to my General Practitioner - not from American Hospital, NOBODY in France pays this.  He also confirmed that American Hospital, being a private hospital is a very costly alternative to other sources of care.

• Eye Exam: 100euro; reimbursed by SS: 17euro

• Standard Lab Blood Tests: 157euro. No reimbursements yet.

Two new people joined our class in the week that I was down in Tuolon; a Khmer (or Cambodienne) and another Sri Lankaise, making that a total of 5 Sri Lankaise in our class. The youngest, who’s been in class since the beginning and who speaks extremely English very well, is picking up French rapidly for having only been in the country for 3 months. She’s fairly westernerized in her outward demeanor and dress and I assume with no particularly good reason or intimate knowledge of culture in Sri Lanka that she’s from a fairly wealthy family . She has pointed out many times that “they”, the other four, are actually Tamil; one being half Tamil and half Sri Lankaise. Despite making this distinction between the “me and them,” they seem to be friendly enough.

The Halfsie seems to have an especially hard time with pronunciation, absorbing, and learning in general. This is evident because she always wants to be the first to read aloud: answers, passages, parts in short skits and maybe shampoo bottles aloud, if we kept them in class. Somewhat expectedly because she’s learning also, she still reads badly. Very unfortunately, she doesn’t hear our teacher’s corrections, thus, much, much, much time is spent on her pronunciation and repetition of the same sentence 10-20 times as the class keep ourselves entertained by banging our heads on the table, careful not to cause bruising or bleeding and flipping our wrists repeatedly to check the time. I have carpal tunnel now.

Today, I watched her from across the tables as she flipped through the first pages of her dictionary, observing that she might be searching high and low between the “A” pages and “C” pages for a word that begins with “T.” I knew about a month ago that she didn’t know how to reference and search - even with a dictionary - but didn’t realize that she was still having problems. The “real” Sri Lankaise chastised her impatiently with some rapid rolls of the Sinhalese tongue from next to me as she does for some part of the everyday, and the other starts for the back of the dictionary with a sheepish look. I suspect that she and the other Tamils had a limited formal school education while the “real” Sri Lankaise was an in-house contract attorney back home.

On the board during break, the Chechen wrote a short paragraph using newly learned lessons of passe compose, future simple, etc. In the middle of the paragraph was a sentence that struck me in it’s simple acceptance, not only of a life and family wrested from him, but acceptance that now, he needs to begin a new life. Now at 55. Now without his wife and 8 children. Now without a tangible history of friends and neighbors. “Je suis venu en France a cause de la guerre,” he wrote.

When we formed a question using the word “peur,” many answered that they fear le serpent and le rat. The Sudanese answered solemnly and without hesitation that he fears la guerre. War. The word rolls of his tongue so matter of factly that I almost miss the significance of why he or they are sitting in French class with me, relearning the basics of life. Speech.  I didn’t say aloud that the biggest fears of my life, consistently since I was young, are losing mon indépendance and suffiency d’individu. Nor would I have mentioned these fears in this particular classroom of people who humble me daily with their strength and generosity.

Quickie like McDonald’s on the run. I haven’t confirmed the information on profitability of McDonald’s, but am accepting it face value because I’m biased against then idea that the French are slim, all on their own.