Confinement food: ginger

I'm done with the confinement food, but just want to share here what I actually ate.

Well, lots and lots of ginger, finely chopped and added to any dishes. Ginger is believed to be able to help the body release "wind" from the body, thus preventing me from having arthritis problem when I grow old.


To finely chop it you need to have a very sharp knife. My aunt demanded a knife without teeth, luckily I brought the one I had from US here.


I ate lots of lean pork with ginger. This is the most expensive part of the pork, hubby said I was eating like a rich people.


My mum also sent me this. This is to help regain energy that I lost during labor.


One type of the Chinese herbs I took. My aunt boiled it into soup with some chicken.


I'm glad the confinement month is over. I'm still pampered by aunt by all the Malaysian foods though.

Full moon 满月

Aelig turned one month today. It is called full moon in the Chinese culture. If she was born in Malaysia, she would have a full moon party, and we would distribute the full moon gift packs to friends and relatives. The packages consisted of delightful treats such as glutinous rice, hard boiled eggs dyed in red, and ensemble of Chinese cakes. The gift packs have been modernized these days, some parents just give out KFC packs.


As far as I know there is no such tradition in France. Some families just buy a cake and celebrate within close family. We bought her a cake and she got more gifts from the family.


Being young parents, this one month was joyous but tough and sometimes furious for us. She is not an angel all the times. The main problem being that she doesn't like to sleep on her bassinet nor our bed. She is colicky almost every evening until 1am. During the day when hubby is working, she would sleep on my arms, on my laps or on my shoulder. Once I put her on her bassinet, she cries. Sometimes I have to eat with her on me. Thank God I have my aunt here taking care of all the house chores, plus she helps me calm her down. My aunt has a lot of patience, when Aelig cries non-stop, she would hold her on her arms for hours as this is the only way the little angel could fall asleep.


When daddy gets home he takes the relay. Aelig is active during the evening so it is very tough for daddy to get her to sleep. He has to rock her for hours before she finally doze off. Sometimes when he put her beside me, she wakes up and he has to redo everything. When she finally falls asleep on bed, it is usually after 1am and I guess that is because she is exhausted, not that she wants to sleep on the bed.


When daddy goes to sleep, I'm all alone to take care of her. During the good nights she sleeps through and wakes up every 3 hours for milk. During the bad nights, she wakes up screaming and crying every 20 minutes, sometimes I have to stand and hold her for like 20 minutes before she could finally go back to sleep but the cycle continues. I couldn't sleep as she would wave her hands from time to time as if she is scared of something.

The situation has worsen. When she was in the hospital, she slept well during the nights. When she got home, she was still sleeping from time to time on her bassinet and on our bed. From the third week on, she refused her bassinet, the most we could get her to sleep on it is 15 minutes. Sometimes I feel so helpless as she won't go to sleep after nursing, she cries non-stop no matter how many positions I tried, at the end mama cries with her too. Two days before she turned one month, both mama and papa couldn't get her to sleep and both were totally wore off with her cries, my aunt came for rescue and it was the first time she didn't sleep with me.


We consulted the doctor and people around, everyone said this is normal, especially for a small baby (she weighted only 2.7kg when she was born). My friends from USA recommended mylicon as apparently she has gas problem, but I couldn't get this in France, instead my doctor prescript her Calmosine. It didn't work much, she still kick her legs when she is in pain with the gas, she would slightly relief only when she manages to fart.

Well, the doctor said this is a transition period that most babies have to go through. I hope she would get better when she gets older.

Confinement food: Dishes with homemade red wine

My homemade Chinese red wine turned out to be delicious. My aunt has been cooking me red wine chicken and red wine noodles.


For the red wine chicken, first julienne some ginger and fry them in sesame oil. Put in some chicken and stir fry and simmer it from time to time for about 5 minutes or until the chicken is tender. Pour in half bowl of red wine and let it simmer for 2 minutes.


Red wine chicken is served.


Red wine noodles. Yummy.

Confinement drink: red date tea

In our Chinese tradition, during the confinement month the new mother should only drink red date tea. Since it is winter, it suits me well to have hot drinks all the times and it tastes really good. The tea is made from red dates, black dates, dried longan, ginger, tom sum & pat keh (Chinese herbs).


My aunt boils me the tea everyday. My family sent me the ingredients from Malaysia, unfortunately they only arrived during the third week of my confinement. At the first few weeks, she only boiled the tea with some gingers and red dates.

Recycling our Christmas Tree

This year we decided to buy our Christmas tree at Ikea due to their recycling program. We paid 20 euros for it and we just returned it and got a 19 euros voucher. Ikea will turn the returned Christmas tree into compost.


The return process got a bit messy though. As usual the car park was overcrowded since it is Saturday and it is on sale period. Hubby dropped me at Ikea's entrance and I went all the way to where we got the tree, just to be told that I need to go to the underground car park. The car park was very big and I didn't know which direction to go. After a while hubby still couldn't find a parking spot so he called me and decided to pick me up and go to the recycling site together. Unfortunately he couldn't find a place to just stop the car as there were heavy traffic. It took me at least 15 minutes to eventually got into the car with the tree (plus I didn't hear my cell ring even though he tried calling me 10 times just to arrange a spot to get into the car).


When we finally returned the tree we got all irritated by the crowd and decided to go to another Lerclerc for grocery shopping. We will try to avoid going near Atlantis shopping center on Saturday again.

Anyway, before I got home, I got a call from my aunt saying that Aelig was hungry. Ok got to rush home to feed the baby, such is my new life, have to play the role as milk cow every 2-3 hours!

6 days in the hospital

After the delivery, I stayed in the hospital for 6 days. Some people asked me why I had to stay for so long, since in Malaysia usually the mother and the new born will get discharged on the second or third day.

In France, on average the new borns and the mothers stay 5 days in the hospital. Beside making sure that the post-natal care could be carried out effectively, the young parents also learn to take care of the new family member.

After staying two hours in the delivery room, I was transferred to a private room. The baby was with me all the times. Everyday the midwife came to ask about my condition, took my temperature and pressure, helped me wash the wound area, gave me medicine if the painkiller was not effective, and answered my doubts. There was another team at the nursery that took care of the baby. The nurse came in from time to time to check on baby's temperature, showed us how to change the diaper and clothes. From third day on, we had to go the nursery to shower the baby, gave her vitamin, weighted her. The pediatrician came by twice during my stay to have regular check up on her.

New daddy giving the first bath to her daughter under the nurse's guidance.


The baby was crying non-stop, the nurse asked the new daddy to hold her in this way to imitate her position in the womb and help her release gas. She liked it and stopped crying instantly.


Baby changing room


Washroom for mommy. Notice that it has a tube water beside the toilet seat for woman to clean up their perineum area. It has only cool water, the midwife explained that cool water could numb the area and help the recovery process. A big no no to the Chinese believe that a new mother should never touch cool water during the first month.


It might sound weird to say it, but the food in the hospital was excellent. They even provide some Christmas dessert during Christmas eve. Due to the swine flu precaution only daddy was allowed to enter the maternity wad, but my in laws and my aunt came to the cafeteria to have Christmas meal with me.

Overall it was quite boring staying 6 days long in the hospital. Luckily hubby brought me books, my favorite CDs and movies to help me pass the time. Besides, it was important to make sure that the baby regains her weight before going home.

We paid 459 euros for all these services. My insurance is supposed to give us bonus plus take care of the room charges (59 euros a day) but well we are still dealing with it.


Scenery outside my room. Blue blue sky on Christmas day.

The exhausting delivery process

During the childbirth preparation class, we learnt about signs of labor in which we have to go to the hospital immediately. My gynecologist reiterated the signs as well during the last check up. As the day drew closer, we had been impatiently waiting for the sign: constant contractions or spot of blood or water break.

One Saturday evening hubby spotted the constant 5 minutes contractions (I was not feeling anything) and he got himself all excited. Turned out it was a false alarm as once I went to sleep the contractions went away.

Finally, on Wednesday morning, I had some blood spots but it was very light. I waited a while, more blood coming, I decided to wake up hubby and we rushed to the hospital. Big mistake to not have a full meal before going. I only managed to drink a cup of milk.

Arrived at the hospital, went into the delivery room while waiting for a midwife to check on me. The midwife came one hour later as the hospital was full and they were shorthanded. She concluded that I have diluted for 2cm so she will keep me.

While waiting in the delivery room, a machine was monitoring the baby's heart beat and my contractions. The contractions didn't come with pain though. Hubby brought me some books, I sat on a balloon and was feeling quite comfortable. The midwife checked on me from time to time and informed me that I can take the epidural anytime I want. Since there was no pain despite the contractions, I wanted to see how far I can wait, or if I could give birth without the epidural. I also read that epidural actually slows down the labor but the midwife told me the contrary. She said for some people, epidural helps relax them thus making the delivery advances faster. After 8 hours there and I was only 4cm diluted, I decided to take on the epidural. Unfortunately, the anesthesiologist was busy with other patients so I had to wait.


I got the epidural at the right time as I started having strong menstrual like cramp. It took only 5 minutes, a painless and easy process. The contraction chart showed that I was having regular and strong contractions but I didn't feel a thing. The midwife came and she predicted that our daughter will arrive around 3am, 15 hours after I admitted to the hospital.

We waited patiently, it was a blessing that hubby was with me during the whole process. His present reassured me. When I was 8cm dilated, a sharp pain hit me on my left butt, the epidural was not preventing it. I had to bear with the pain as even though I was pressing for more dose of epidural and the midwife changed the product in the epidural, nothing worked. I had no choice but to proceed with the pushing stage as I was 10cm dilated.

The pushing started. The midwife told me that it would only take 10 minutes since the baby's head was already at the birth canal. I had the midwife, a nurse and a doctor monitoring the process while hubby stayed on my right hand side. The nurse showed me how to push, but several pushes, the baby heart beat deteriorating so the doctor decided to perform a forceps.

At 2.53am, our daughter is born. When the nurse posted the baby on me, I had no feeling for her as I was in deep pain while the doctor was sewing my perinea area. I kept asking when were they going to finish. It took the doctor some time, and the pain won't ease away. I had to live with the soreness for about 2 weeks, I'm glad it is getting better now.

Our gift from Santa Claus: she is here

On Christmas eve, Santa Claus sent us a gift.
Our daughter, Aelig is born after around 15 hours of labor in the hospital.
We stayed in the hospital for 6 days, receiving excellent good care from the healthcare team.
Unfortunately, due to the swine flu precaution, only the father is allowed to visit the maternity ward . The family and friends only manage to see her after we discharged from the hospital.

Stuck in the snow

Hubby went to work from 7.30am and only arrived at 12.30pm due to the snow! The journey usually takes 1 hour so he was stuck on the highway for 4 hours. He went out of the car and managed to shop at a local market. He also saw my carpoolers (he was going to the same city) who got stuck along the way too. I'm glad I didn't have to go to work that day.

Excellent guide service at Paris Charles de Gaulle

My aunt has arrived safely in Nantes. Despite the pain in the booking process, the escort interpreter and her colleagues from the guide service at Paris Charles de Gaulle have provided us excellent services.

The person in charge called me three days before her arrival to confirm about the service reservation. Once my aunt touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport, she was immediately greeted by the escort interpreter, Miss Cecile Mo, who happens to be a Malaysian. She was there since 5am even though the flight was schedule to arrive at 6.40am. Well, the flight arrived earlier than expected at 5.45am. So, she brought my aunt passing through the immigration and custom check point, then brought her to check in for her next flight. When she called me at 7am, my aunt was all set to board for her next flight. Since she has no job assignment after, she stayed and chatted with my aunt until 9am. What an excellent service she provided!

I would strongly recommend you to use this service if your friends and family are visiting you in France but have no confident to find their own way in the airport for the next connecting flight. Unfortunately, this service is limited to Air France passengers, I hope they would open up to every Airlines in the short future. This service was established about one year ago. Miss Mo was very surprised how I managed to book the service from France. According to her most of the requests are from Mainland China or Hong Kong. Well, I paid 88 euros + 4 euros transaction cost (I have to pay in HK dollar), but it is worth it.

Buaian / Sarong cradle Vs crib

Everyone in my family grew up with a buaian (Malay) or sarong cradle. It is called "swinging basket" in Chinese. It is designed so that the button part of the buaian is holding the baby, giving baby the feeling that he or she is still in the womb and being held. I was a colic baby, I won't not fall asleep if my mother didn't swing the buaian, it was in the swinging sensation I slept sound. Now they have modern electronic buaian so baby falls sleep without having someone manually swing it. The machine would do the work.

Hubby doesn't like the swinging idea so we didn't ask my family to send one for us. I know that some of my friends in the US got their family sent them one because their baby didn't sleep well in a crib but sleep well in a buaian. I think it really depends on babies as some like the swinging sensation but some don't.

In my generation I don't know anybody growing up sleeping on a crib. In my family, one of my sisters bought a crib, but my other nieces and nephews sleep on the bed with the parents or on a mattress on the floor once they got home from the hospital. They would take the nap either on the buaian or on a mattress or on the sofa.

It is a totally different story in France. As far as I know, you don't put baby sleeping on the floor with a mattress.

New born baby sleeps in a basket. My in laws gave us this, a basket used by my FIL when he was a baby (just guess how old this basket is). We custom made the mattress and my MIL covered the mattress with a silk cloth. According to my midwife, it is better for the baby to sleep in something smaller size instead of the crib so she will feel safer.

I don't know how long the baby can sleep in the crib before needing a bigger size bed. In this case a baby needs a basket, then a crib, then a small bed, and an adult bed. No wonder people need to live in a big house with garage and store rooms, there are just too much things and space needed whenever we add one family member.


A friend lend us this so we can transport the baby in our car. Since the law in Malaysia does not require this, most of the time the mother will hold the baby on her arm while the father driving. Kids here sit quietly in the back as they are trained to sit on baby chair since they are born. Kids in Malaysia sit and play in the car without car chair. My nephews fight to sit in the front passenger seat, leaving the adults jump pack in the back. Well, they have gradually changed the law and I hope one day all my nephews will just sit quickly at the back.

One month to go

Our daughter will join us in a month and it is amazing how much she has influenced our life even though she is still stuck in the stomach.

First of all, I don't sleep sound like before. During the third trimester I snore a lot due to the blocking airway, and that disturbs hubby's sleeping pattern. Then, it is getting hard to change sleeping position, not to mention that she wakes me up when she does hiccup. By the way, a lot of older generation didn't know about baby hiccup, but most of the young mothers told me that they did experience baby hiccup during pregnancy.

Then, my feet got swollen so it becomes a bit uneasy to walk around. During the day, I keep telling myself to drink plenty of water, making sure I eat somethings rich with calcium and protein, never skipping a meal.

Whenever we plan about trips here and there, we need to consider there will be a baby to think about. We have to contact the in laws for possible baby sitting help.

My doctor asked me to go for the H1A1 vaccination, it I was alone I won't even bother about this, now I need to consider protecting the baby.

The immediate dilemma is how to organize for the coming Christmas celebration. We don't know when the baby decides to come so for sure we won't be able to travel to my in laws place so instead they have to come over. They are not quite comfortable with our lodging arrangement though. Well, in our tiny apartment we couldn't provide everyone with a bed so it is something we still need to deal with. I wonder if every household has so much space at home to welcome their guests for big events.

The baby is becoming the center of our life even before she is born. Wow.

Enjoying my life

It has been raining non-stop these days. How I'm glad that I don't have to wake up every morning and rush to work.

Some people asked me what I'm doing these days while waiting for the big day. Well, I'm not a very outgoing kind of person, so staying at home suits me just fine.

I thought I would miss the working life but the fact is, work is far behind me and I don't even bother to check my work mails.

So, I'm enjoying every bit of my life doing stuffs that I don't get to do while working:
- sleep whenever I want
- chat with friends in Malaysia during their working hours
- call home almost everyday
- make appointments during weekdays
- go to market to pick up fresh food and fruits
- get prepared for the big day
- connect with the baby while she is kicking and doing somersault in the stomach
- received friends at home on weekdays
- cook for hubby

Well, on the other hand I haven't been sleeping well due to the big stomach. Then got annoyed by those religion people who keep wanting to convert me. That day I didn't answer the door thinking it was them again but it was actually the postman. I got all excited thinking that it was the parcel from Malaysia, but when I looked at the note the postman left, it was some documents from our apartment complex. And now I need to make a trip to the post office just to collect this stupid document. I avoid driving now since my stomach is almost touching the steering. Now whenever I see these religion people, I just say:"no thank you" and close the door.

Doctor appointment = long waiting time?

I saw my gynecologist for the first time. My early pregnancy was followed by my generalist and each time I had to wait like 30 minutes passed appointment time, unless I took the earliest appointment spot.

I don't know why but I thought with my gynecologist it would be different. I was so wrong, I waited 2 hours. Her secretary reserved another appointment for me with an anesthetist one hour later, so I actually went with the anesthetist first before waiting for another hour to see her.

Well, she kept apologizing for being late, she actually went to the emergency room earlier. My session with my generalist usually lasted about 40 minutes, and with her, I was out of her room 15 minutes later. During the session, she got a call from her daughter, I heard her saying that she still have one more patient to attend to, then she has to go to another hospital, so she can't be home before 8.30pm. Hard work indeed.

She seems to be a nice doctor, I think she would like to talk more with me if not due to her busy schedule. And, she costs a lot more too, 47 euros vs 22 euros with my generalist. I can see why the French government is encouraging the early pregnancy to be followed by a generalist, it can indeed save a lot of money if every pregnant woman follows suit.

No, you don't say no to a customer like me

I have a long battle with Air France about their guide service at Charles De Gaulle Airport. Of course, with a customer like me, they lost the battle. I got what I wanted, from Air France Hong Kong. Well, I still lost to Air France in Nantes though.

The battle starts with:
My aunt is coming to France. Initially I arranged that hubby goes to Paris to pick her up. Since she arrives early in the morning, that means either hubby has to stay overnight in CDG airport if he takes train, or he will have to drive overnight to Paris (round trip 10 hours). I found both solutions are inconvenient to hubby, plus I don't want him to be too far away from me in case the baby decides to arrive early.

I did some research online and I found a better solution:
Guide Service at CDG provides by Air France.
With this service, someone who speaks Mandarin can go pick up my aunt, guide her through immigration and custom, and bring her to the gate where she is going to take a plane to Nantes.A perfect solution that would only cost 88 euros, and she will be taken care of once she touches down in Paris.

Now, the challenge is how to get this service. I practically never call any services here because you need to pay for each call. I sent an email to Air France but after 2 weeks I didn't get any reply. I went to Air France office in Nantes, first they had never heard of this, and when they discovered that my aunt was not taking Air France from Kuala Lumpur to Paris, they immediately refused to serve me. I didn't give up and researched further as I don't think any reasonable person would refuse business. Then only I discovered that the service is listed in Air France Hong Kong website with a phone number. I know with my internet provider FREE, I can call Hong Kong for free and usually in Hong Kong the service line is free. So I called up Air France Hong Kong, they told me it is not possible to provide this service without any reservation. I told them that if I'm not sure they could give me this service I will not make reservation for the Paris - Nantes flight and they will lose business. I insisted that if they give me what I want, they will have my business: Paris-Nantes flight + the 88 euros services. The agent was kind of convinced, she gave me a number to contact the service provider directly in Paris.

Apparently Air France has partnership with an independent agent in Paris for this kind of service. I talked to the person in charge, he said no problem, he will take the order. However, he said I just need to twist a bit my reservation, don't tell Air France that it is for the arrival since my aunt comes with another airlines, just tell them that it is a service to assist my aunt for the departure to Nantes. Since he couldn't take the payment directly, I still need to pay in any Air France counter.

So I went again to Air France Nantes and printed out the website. The assistant was very confused as she has not heard of this service but she can't refuse as it is listed in the website that it was an Air France service. This assistant was actually quite helpful, she called here and there for information. It seemed that nobody knows about it so she called the independent agent in Paris. She got confirmation that I could get this service, and she was told how to handle the payment. Well, it seemed that there were still some procedures she couldn't figure out so she asked me to go home and wait for her call.

Two days later I still get nothing from her. I called the agent in Paris to check if they have received any order from Air France Nantes. No they didn't and they actually had sent all the necessary instructions to Air France Nantes for the payment operation. Well, I decided to call Air France Hong Kong instead. This time she told me to have this service, my aunt needs to take a long haul flight with Air France and Paris-Nantes flight is considered a short distance flight. I reasoned with her that the service provider in Paris has agreed to this service, now just let me pay. She kept asking me to hold on so that she can asked her superior for approval. Eventually she gave me a solution: she would request this service to Paris, if they agree, she will let me pay through Air France Hong Kong.

And I got a call this morning from Hong Kong! The guy called me and spoke to me in Cantonese, saying that the service has been approved, now I just need to pay. It was so weird, for some reason I lost the ability to tell my credit card number in Cantonese, but the guy has been very patient. He nicely explained that I will get a confirmation email once the payment goes through.

And I got the confirmation email 20 minutes later. Such a wonderful service.

My philosophy: If there is a business, they will find you a solution.
Well, this probably only works with Asian mentality, as until now I didn't get any call from Air France Nantes. Anyway the business amount is probably too small for them to even bother about it.

Baby's room or parents' room?

We have been attending childbirth classes, sponsor by the government. At first I was skeptical about the usefulness of these classes, as I thought we could get most of the information from parents and friends who have already gone through all these. After 4 classes I really like it as the midwife explains things more from the medical and professional perspectives than what our friends can tell us.

On the third class, the midwife threw us a question: where will your baby sleeps? In the parents' room or baby's room?

We were three couples. In my culture most of the new born sleeps with the parents or other adults, I thought I was the only one choosing the parents' room. Out of my surprise, one woman said she was not sure, she might want to put the baby in her room for the first 2 months. I then expected the midwife to educate us about how it would be inappropriate to put the baby in the parents' room, but again, she surprised me.

According to her, statistically, only one third of the world put the baby in a separate room and it is actually an occidental practice. From medical stand point of view, it is preferable to put the baby in the same room as the parents. The baby was living in a comfortable temperature until he or she is born. Suddenly, he or she has to deal with complete strangeness in the world. It would be nice for he or she to immediately be around with something familiar, like parents' voice, smell, breathing...During the night, some babies can stop breathing, but when hearing the parents' breathing, the baby's respiration system restarts. Moreover, the baby won't realize a thing if you have put he/she in a baby room or dining room during the first 9 months.

Having said that, she assures us this is totally up to the parents to decide. There is no right or wrong answer. She understands that parents want the baby to be independent since the first day, but she reminds us that when a baby grows up, he or she will like to have privacy and would naturally putting distance between parents and child. One couple raised concern about their intimacy, meaning they might not be able to continue their couple private activities. Her response was hilarious, she said you just need to be creative. Well, I personally don't think this is an issue, seeing how my siblings continue to produce the second and third kids while their first still sleeping in the same room as them.

I know the other two couples were not quite convinced since it is a norm in France that baby sleeps in the baby room. I was thrilled and relieved that hubby changed his point of view after this class. He was reluctant to let the baby sleeps in our room but now he has completely accepted it. The baby bed is already set up in the room.


This photo shows the childbirth classroom we were attending. We learnt about using the balloon to ease the contraction. It was very fun as she also taught us how to sit on the balloon while leaning on our partner, and at the same receiving back massage from the partner. Very cool class I would say!

One more week before my maternity leaves start

It is the tax season again. In Sept and Oct French people received a bunch of request to pay their taxes: income tax, property tax, community tax, professional tax, revenue tax... usually all these have to be settled before the end of Nov. Unfortunately, due to the economic downtown, most of the taxes have increased to cover the lost in government income and big surge in social expenses. When hubby received the community tax, he was like "what the hell?". Well, I was pretty calm about these, all these years in France, I have learnt to accept paying high taxes.

So what does this have to do with my maternity leaves?

Well, I have been getting immense pressure from people around me to stop the car trip. My doctor could just give me a certificate and I could stop anytime if I want. At the beginning I was quite firm about it: I feel great, I do not believe that car trip hurts the pregnancy, my baby is pretty calm in the car... so my maternity leaves will start 6 weeks before the due date, period.

Then, I got more and more pressure: my boss asked shouldn't I stop earlier due to the car trip? My coworkers said I should just take the chance to rest since when the baby is here there will be no time for myself. My mother said why so stupid if the government pays for it might as well take it. My grandmother said I shouldn't put the baby's life in danger.

So I was thinking, if I pay taxes like everyone else, I might as well enjoy the social benefits like everyone else. So I agreed to 6 + 2 weeks (pathology leaves), all will be paid by the French government. This decision seems to please everyone.

So, one more week to go.

Old bed new paint

Can you imagine this was the baby crib for hubby 30 years ago? His father made it and his mother painted it.


Now, let's revitalize the crib by putting on new paints.


It seems like hubby was enjoying the painting process.


Et voila! A new crib for our baby. Isn't it amazing? This crib had witnessed hubby's baby days and now it is going to serve his descendant.


He also bought the baby a dresser. I was not with him when he went to the shop, he sent me photos through his google phone and called me up at work. I checked my emails and looked at the photos. I think it looked elegant, so I said ok. He will match it with the crib, so another painting project waiting for him.

A regular consultation session with my doctor

I have been with this doctor ever since I moved to France. I stay with her because she is willing to listen and try to understand me. Sometimes I couldn't find the words in French, and she patiently listen to my explanations and finally find the words for me. I think I'm her first Asian patient, everytime I call for an appointment, her secretary recognizes me immediately.

However, there is one drawback that I don't like, but this could apply for many doctors: she always makes me wait for 30 to 40 minutes pass the appointment time. I hate to wait when I already made an appointment, so these days I tried to be the first patient, got myself the 9am spot.

I arrived at 8.55am on a Saturday morning. Her secretary doesn't work on weekend.
She was on the phone with a patient. So I waited. At 9.15am she was still on the phone:

Her: Yes Mrs X, I think it is better for you to stay home now, you can come see me next Monday.
Mrs X: blah blah blah
Her: Ok have a nice day. She finally hung up.

So my consultation started, 15 minutes late.
Her: So, I have received your blood test result, let see how it goes. According to this chart...
The phone rang.
Her: Excuse me. (Picking up the phone)
Her: Yes Mrs Y, how can I help you? Oh yes with this syndrome you can use this medicine. For this brand you can just buy over the counter, but for the other one you will need a prescription...ok come see me on Tuesday... ok Thursday then...ok bye.
Hung up the phone.
Her: Sorry for that, I hope the phone won't ring again. So we were talking about your blood test. The glucose level seems fine. Let me check with my book.
While referring to her book, the phone rang.

Her: Dr B here how may I help you? Oh Mrs Z, your son is having a fever? Did he throw out? Since when? Ok bring him in today, I got a spot at 11.30am. Oh don't worry at the mean time just make him drinks plenty of water...
Hung up the phone and back to me.

Her: Ok blood test is good, but your plasma level seems a bit low. Go get another blood test next week to check it out.(Oh my God, another blood test, my arms are still having bruises!). The result also shows that you have not enough iron, so I will prescript you iron for the next 3 months. (Wow, first time she asks me to take supplementary pills, everyone was asking me why I was not taking all those vitamins, folid acid pills, but she thinks that those chemical products are not good for baby). Now let me see how you and your baby doing.

I weighted myself. Gaining normal weight. She then put some gel on my belly to try to listen to the baby heart beat. While she was putting the gel, the phone rang. She quickly washed her hands and rushed to the phone. The usual round of patient asking questions or taking appointments.

After the regular check out, she asked whether I was feeling tired or having contractions. And finally, she wanted me to stop working immediately as she thinks that the 3 hours round trip everyday is not good for the pregnancy. She had wanted me to stop every since I was 3 months pregnant. We negotiated and finally she agreed I will stop 8 weeks before the due date.

And then she went:"that would be 22 euros and I will need your medical card." I quickly wrote her a check while she was running my medical card with her machine. Then I got all the prescriptions needed. We finished at 9.50am.

I was quick short at this phenomena that in France doctors have to do the administrative tasks during their consultation times. My doctor only does that during the weekend, but that's because she is sharing a secretary with another partner. My dentist is practicing alone so he didn't have a secretary. While he was cleaning my teeth he sometimes has to stop to pick up phone calls for appointment. I feel weird each time they ask for the payment. I had been so used to doctors just doing the consultation and everything else handles by their nurses or secretaries.

I wonder, there is 10% of people unemployed. Why can't these doctors hire part timers to help them, so that they can concentrate 100% on their jobs. This could reduce the unemployed rate, best helping these people gaining working experience.

The bloody blood test

I need to perform a blood and urine test every month and one of the tests show that I have high glucose level in the urine. This led to the O'Sullivan test, where I had to first take a blood sample, drink 50g of glucose solution and wait for one hour before taking another blood sample. I did this on a Saturday morning. I did not want to stay one hour in the lab so they made me signed a paper and released me right after.

Well, my doctor was not satisfied with the result so I had to go through another test - Oral glucose tolerance test. This test requires me to stay in the lab for 3 hours. I showed up one Saturday morning in a lab situated in another city, and was told that I needed to take an appointment as they only accept two patients per day. Ok, I didn't know that. Since all the Saturdays were planned with some activities before going back to see my doctor, I had no choice but to take half day off to perform this test.

It was my turn to drive on Monday morning. Unfortunately, there was an accident on the highway, we were stucked 25 minutes and were moving at a snail speed. I made an appointment at 9am and when I arrived at 9.25am, the lab was full of people, mostly elderly. They took my first blood sample at 9.40am and I had to drink 100g of glucose solution at once. Luckily it was with orange favor so I managed to drink it without much problem. They then took blood sample at 30 minutes intervals (twice) then 60 minutes interval (twice). It was 1pm when I finally got out of the lab, starving, feeling vulnerable, both arms with bruises.

The lab sent me and my doctor the analysis result two days after. If I interpreted it correctly, my glucose level is below the dangerous level, need to confirm with my doctor. Just hope everything is going well and I don't have to deal with this again.