That was my best friend's first reaction when I told her I was pregnant and going to
have the baby here in Paris. "Are you sure you shouldn't come back to the
States to have the baby? Is it safe to have a baby over there? What
kind of doctors do they have?" There was no way she could believe that I was
going to give birth in a foreign country. You see, she's what I like to call
"old-school American", which means, things are almost always better in
America.
My dear friend asked all the questions that would become quite common over the
course of my pregnancy--would the baby be French? What about his American
rights? What kind of hospitals and equipment do they have over here? And
although I had little concern for the concerns that she was voicing, I did,
however, know that having a baby in France would not be like having a baby
in the States. One of my sisters has had six so I know a little bit about
how it works over there. I knew that it wouldn't be quite the same over
here. For me, it all started about four years ago when I went to my
gynecologist for the first time for a yearly
check-up...
I had gotten my gynecologist's name and phone number from the "American Embassy's List of English Speaking
Doctors" because when I first got to France almost five years ago, I didn't
speak a lick of French. Having an English-speaking doctor was of the utmost
importance for me. I thought the appointment would be a breeze since the
language part was being covered. However, I was unprepared for how the
actual visit would be.
I arrived to find that her office and the examination room were one in the
same. Interesting. As she sat at her desk asking me the usual
questions, I was looking around trying to determine if the window facing the
examination table had thick enough curtains. They were sheer white and
looked absolutely see through. Scary. Once the questions were over,
my gynecologist told me to go ahead and prepare for the examination, in other words, to strip. I
said "alright" and walked over to the table, a mere three steps from the
chair I had been sitting in, and sat down on the table.
She continued rustling her papers, washed her hands, and then came back over to
the table to where I was. She looked at me. I looked at her. Finally after
smiling at each other for what seemed like a long, long time, she said, "I'm
sorry for my English, but I mean for you to take off your clothes. We are
ready for examination." I smiled back at her and said, "No, I understood you
very well. Your English is great!" (After all, you never want to insult a doctor who'll soon have you naked in a pair of
stirrups.) The doctor came closer and said, "Why did you not do it already?
You feel okay, non?" I sheepishly said, "I was waiting for you to
leave the room." She laughed and said: "It's different in America, yes?" To
that, I let out a long "yesssssss."
I knew it then though. Gone were the days when my doctor would politely leave the
room, and leave me sitting on the table for a good fifteen minutes barely
covered up in a little blue tissue-dress, and then gently tap on the door of
the examination room before re-entering with a nurse who would witness
everything. Yes, I was definitely out of Kansas, or Alabama if you will.
After the examination, the doctor jovially gave my vial, my personal
stuff to her secretary, who proceeded to put the vial in a brown manila
envelope. The secretary was telling me not to forget to put a stamp on the
envelope before mailing it to the lab. Somewhere between lab and stamp I
woke up out of my stupor and asked "Excuse me, but did you say that you want
me to mail it? Mail the vial?" Looking at me as if I were an alien, she said,
"Yes. You mail it. Of course you mail it." "Oh, okay. Yeah.
Alright." Those were the only words that I could muster. There was no lab on
site? Bizarre.
I left the doctor's office feeling like the title of a movie I'd seen
recently-Dazed and Confused. For one thing, I was sure that someone had
probably set up a video camera across the street from the doctor's
sheer-curtained office and that pictures of me in the stirrips would soon
appear all over the internet and who knows where else. God Bless my soul!
The horror! I thought about calling my husband to make sure that this
practice of sheer curtains, disrobing in front of the doctor, no nurse
witness, and mailing my own vial to the lab were common practice in France,
but then I thought, "He wouldn't know. When's the last time he went to a
gynaecologist?"
I called my mother-in-law in Normandy. She told me that indeed it was all common,
c'est normale, she said. (That's a
French phrase you have to get used to if you live here.) Then she actually helped me put everything in
perspective. I mean, after all, the doctor was going to see me naked anyway,
right? What difference did it make if he or she left the room before I
disrobed or not? And as for taking my own personal specimen to the post
office to mail to the lab, wasn't it better that I took care of it myself,
rather than someone else? She had me convinced that it was all completely
normal. Well, almost.
I continued on to La Poste nervously carrying the envelope under my
arm. You see, I had my small purse with me that day and there was no way it
would fit in there. Three words: Christian Dior baguette. You can barely put
a postcard in there, much less a large envelope containing a vial. When I
got to La Poste I thought that the clerk would know what I was
handing him, and pose embarrassing questions about it. Nope. He just took
it, stamped it, and put it in the bin. I was relieved. But I walked out of
there knowing that my next project, having a baby in France, would indeed be
an adventure. I also knew that I would never again take my baguette purse to
a doctor's appointment, just in case.
go to part 2...
