Pregnant in France and tearing my hair out

[cocolacocotte]

Hi everyone,

I have lived here for over 14 years now and having been through a range of administrative labyrinths including (but not limited to) registering with the sécu, being made redundant, taking a former employer to industrial tribunal, getting married and applying for dual nationality, I thought I had a pretty good idea of just how complex they like to make things but since I found out I was pregnant two weeks ago I'm starting to realise that I had only seen the tip of the iceberg.

First, my doctor told me that peeing on a stick wasn't enough to prove that I was pregnant so I had to go for a blood test then go back to see him with the results.
Once he had the results, he confirmed the fact that I was pregnant and told me to pick a maternité and gave me a second prescription for more blood tests.
Today, I called the maternité to register and was told that the hormone levels on my last test were too low to register with them and I have to go and do another test. No, they can't give me the prescription for the test so now I have to go back to my GP to get the prescription, then to the lab for the test, then call the maternité back. Basically, I'm pregnant but not pregnant enough.
Oh, and they also said that I need to find an outside ecographer to do a dating scan. Or maybe not.

The worst thing is that I'm pretty sure that the bureaucracy is only going to get worse from here. I'm completely bilingual so there's no language barrier but I feel completely lost and disorientated. None of my friends here have had kids yet and my husband doesn't have a clue what to do either. Will someone please tell me that I'm going to get through this and manage to register with a maternité before I go into labour?

How strange. When I was pregnant they took my word for it and gave me a referral for an ultrasound. Then I went to the hospital, registered and from then on was under the care of midwives who I saw once month iirc and who wrote out prescriptions for all the blood tests. No blood test was taken to confirm the pregnancy. Odd. In any case, once you're registered with the hospital it should all be straightforward. Mind you, you need to register pretty early on. I showed up apparently too late and they didn't want to register me til I said that as they are my local hospital I'll just come to urgence to give birth anyway.

Yes that is strange. Roughly where in France are you? Do you have another maternité you could go to? I changed mine at about five or so months as I wasn't happy with the first one, so there is some flexibility.

I'm in Paris. I get the feeling that they can just make up the rules as they go along (as can most companies and services when they are in Paris).

I have looked into others but this one is close to home and has an excellent reputation, contrary to many others.

I went to the lab for a second test this morning and will get the results at 3 so hopefully I'll have an appointment by the end of the day.

Are you a member of Message Paris? Their childbirth advice is really good. I gave birth in Ile de France last year - I looked at the Franco-Britannique but found it quite snooty and dreadful for parking so switched half-way through pregnancy to my local hospital in the 'burbs, where I got excellent antenatal care. I'm just trying to think how it went - I'm fairly certain I had to take a note from my gynae along to confirm I was pregnant, though I already had the blood results as I'd had fertility treatment, so I can't comment on that. Then of course all the various blood tests (monthly as I was negative for toxoplasmosis) were done at my local labo.

BTW we're vaguely planning an MN Paris meet, there's a thread on Living overseas if you're interested!

That you're in Paris explains the rush to register at a maternité. In the rest of France, you only need to go when you're obviously pregnant....but they do love their blood tests here so that's not surprising. The epitome of administrative hassles is dealing with the CAF - just forewarning you!

It may be a Paris thing as I know maternity services are quite stretched there. I am in rural France and it was quite different here (twice). I just went to my normal gynecologist and saw her once a month until 7 months when you register with the hospital. I did a dating scan but that was outside the three provided (12 weeks, 22 weeks and 32 weeks), my gynea gave me an ordonnance and I went to any radiography centre I wanted. I had a blood test to confirm the pregnancy, a screening blood test at the start for a variety of things, a blood test every month for toxo as I didn't have the antibodies, and the glucose test. I am afraid that pregnancy can involve quite a lot of blood tests!

Oh do you have a confirmation of your blood type? If not that involves two more blood tests at a specific centre on top of everything else!

This is quite weird. The only trouble I had last year was not being able to find a maternité with space, and yes, the repeated blood type testing which they did at the hospital during my midwife appointments.

Where are you in Paris? I was in the 12/11/20th border and ended up at Tenon, though Diaconesse would have been my first choice. Don't believe negative reviews of maternity hospitals online, the French love a good moan!

Don't worry, I wanted to say also that I registered with Tenon when I was already 6 months pregnant, so there will be a space, just perhaps not your first choice.

When I couldn't get what I wanted I would just call back later and ask again, usually got a different answer!

Hi all,

sorry for the lack of messages - I had to make an emergency trip back to the UK.

So, I ended up calling the lab where I usually go and explaining and they were great. As I had been in the day before for some other tests, they just added the betaHcG on to the file and got the results back to me on the same day. The count was much higher so I was able to call the maternité and get an appointment. I'm booked in to see a midwife at Trousseau (so not that far from alteredimages) in December and I have an appointment with my gyneacologist next week for a dating scan. He will do the follow-up until the hospital takes over in December.

Trying to answer some of the questions asked by other posters:

• I'm not on message Paris as I've never really been that into the expat-specific community. I'll look into it though. A meet-up could be fun but difficult to swing for me as I work outside of Paris (with a 3h return commute) and am busy most weekends. I'll look the thread up and lurk

• I did know my blood group and had the card so I just have to have the one 'confirmation' test from time to time. I didn't have to go to a specific centre to get the original card though - I just had to have two samples taken by two different technicians but both in the same lab.

• I'm in the 20th and registered with Trousseau, which has incorporated part of Les Bleuets. My neighbour, who is a doctor, did all of her training and had her two children at Tenon. She said that it was very good but that she wouldn't advise it for first time mothers who are nervous or who want to feel fully implicated in decisions as the staff were a little set in the 'lie back and let us get on with it' approach. Les diaconnesses would have been my first choice but they are only a level one facility and there are precedents in my family that mean I'll be more at ease for the pregnancy and birth in a higher level centre.

Thanks again for all your help

Trousseau is excellent, coco, I used their out of hours service quite a bit and I completely agree about Tenon and its old school policies. I wasn't allowed to leave the ward for 4 days, even for a walk, had baby taken away to sleep in the nursery for the first night, and had some truly horrid bfing advisors. Luckily my first birth experience here in Egypt was so awful that I was happy to let them get on with it! The midwives were really nice though, which is what I needed.

When I tried to register at Trousseau they told me they had been booked up for months by the time I called, I think before I was 6 weeks pregnant. .

I am sure you know more about this than me but don't forget to register for a creche space well before the birth.

I've been in France since 1997 and am not at all into the expat scene (bilingual fonctionnaire, French husband, yadda yadda) but I was surprised when I had DS at how important it became to me to meet other English-speaking mums, especially as DH doesn't speak much English and DS is at a French creche. Message is pretty good for that.