Author: X

In France, échographie is typically done three times during the whole pregnancy.  First in the 3rd month; second in the 5/6th month; third in the 8th month.  I did the first échographie in China.  Actually I did three times in China… within one and a half months.  They only checked very briefly though (a couple of minutes), probably because it’s the early stage.

After the first meeting with my sage-femme (SF), it’s the right time for me to do the second échographie.  It was done in the same hospital, CHU.  The purpose was to estimate the delivery day, and to examine if there’s any abnormality.  A SF and a student performed the échographie.  The student speaks some English 🙂

It took more than half an hour!  They did very careful examination, and explained to us what we were looking at.  Suddenly, they asked us whether we wanted to know the sex of the baby.  We nodded.  Un garçon!  A boy!  Although we were not sure how they could tell, we were quite excited.  In the end, they provided a detailed report containing many photos.  Due to the positioning of the baby, they could not get everything that they needed.  Plus, the size of the baby seemed smaller than expected (based on DDR).  Therefore, they suggested to do another échographie, which was done in the following week.  Also, they said the first échographie done in China should be more accurate to estimate the DDG, so a translated report would be helpful.  In fact, there’s only one measurement in the Chinese report – LCC.  Based on that LCC, the SF estimated a new DDG, and she thought the size of the baby was okay.  We were kinda relieved.

I did the third échographie at 33w+3d.   Again, the SF measured a lot of things, and everything seemed normal.  The calculated weight of the baby was ~1900g (25~50% in their database).  The positioning of the baby was good, which I was very pleased to know.

Oh, I forgot to mention that after the second échographie, they somehow could construct a photo of the baby’s face.  Will our baby truly look like that?

 

X

After getting our temporary social security numbers and mutuelle numbers, the first thing we did was to make an appointment with a sage-femme (SF) in the hospital.  A friend helped us with that as we cannot speak French.  Grenoble is not very big, so we could get an appointment pretty soon (a week from the call).

It took us 10 minutes to find the hospital… Then, we went to the Accueil.  The lady there cannot speak English, but we slowly got what we needed to do.  There’s a room with several counters, and they are calling numbers (later we knew it’s the registration place, where the payment is taken care of).  People outside are waiting to be called in.  So we also got a number.  When it’s our turn, we went in and showed that we had an appointment with XXX.  There’s a young lady who speaks English, so she helped to put in all the information.  Basically she only asked for my passport and the health insurance info.  After that, she printed out a paper that has many stickers with my name and date of birth.   We were glad that we could use the health insurance (social security takes care of 70%, and mutuelle pays for the rest).

Paperwork was done.  We went to the consultation section.  There’s a small Accueil.  Again we said we were here to see XXX, and we showed the paper with stickers.  We were then pointed to a waiting area.  Around the agreed time, somebody came to the waiting area, and called my last name.  She was the SF!  Luckily she speaks a little English!  Since it’s our first meeting, she asked a lot of questions about our medical history and our families.  She also checked my condition (blood pressure etc.).  In the end, she gave me a list of tests need to be done in a laboratory, scheduled the next meeting, and asked us to go to that small Accueil to schedule an echography.

After that first meeting, we are kinda familiar with the hospital and the processes: where to register, where to wait, and where to schedule for appointments.  Then, after the pregnancy proceeded to the seventh month, the registration place put a pink note on the paper with stickers.  They told me that I did not need to register any more – just go to see the SF or doctor.  So, it seems like the registration place only deal with payment.  Since social security covers all the cost after the 6th month of pregnancy, no registration is needed.  For each meeting, the SF takes away one sticker, not the whole paper.

Up till now, we have had four meetings with the SF.  During the meetings, she checks my weight, blood pressure, tummy, and listens to the heart beat of the baby.  She logs all the information and the results of laboratory tests into the computer.  For me, I ask questions, and I tell her how I feel.  She prescribes Fe (every month), vitamin D (once), blood test -sugar (once), urine test -sugar/protein (every month after the 6th month), and blood test -toxoplasmose (every month).  Everything seems going well.  She also introduced us to a SF liberal for the classes (100% covered by social security), and gave us a lot of information on how to prepare for the big day, for example, what number to call when the time comes.  She is really helpful!

 

X