Sophie La Giraffe, Clas­sic French Toy I Couldn’t Resist Buying!

Mark was born on Octo­ber 12, 2012. These arti­cles were writ­ten shortly before his birth (it was a great cathar­sis!) and doc­u­ment the nine months of preg­nant where I was def­i­nitely not glow­ing. Up-to-date sto­ries com­ing up as well!

When I first learned I was preg­nant, some peo­ple asked me if I was going to move back to France for a few months.

Their ques­tion sur­prised me because I hadn’t even con­sid­ered the option.

If I had been an expat, I may have felt the urge to go back home at some point. But I am not an expat. I am an immi­grant, a bona fide Cana­dian. I have been liv­ing full-time in Ontario since 2003 and I am a Cana­dian cit­i­zen. Why wouldn’t I trust the coun­try I chose to call home?

If any­thing, bak­ing the baby in France would have been more com­pli­cated. I left Nantes, my home­town, in 2001, right after grad­u­at­ing from high school. Since then, the longest I have lived in France was nine months in 2002—no, I wasn’t hav­ing a baby back then, I was work­ing and going to uni­ver­sity in Paris.

So I haven’t had an “adult life” in France: I have never had a real job in France other than a few assign­ments with a staffing agency, I have never rented an apart­ment, never used the health­care sys­tem as an adult, never paid taxes.

If any­thing, hav­ing the baby in France would have been more com­pli­cated. I’m no longer cov­ered by the French health­care sys­tem for a start because, well, I am no longer a res­i­dent. I would have needed to sup­port myself, and find­ing a job in France would have been very dif­fi­cult, con­sid­er­ing my lack of French experience—ironically!—and the fact that well, I’m expect­ing. And how about Feng? He isn’t French. Okay, he is prob­a­bly more French than most Chinese-Canadian thanks to me, but he doesn’t have an immi­gra­tion sta­tus in Europe.

Besides, I’m Cana­dian enough that hav­ing a baby here doesn’t scare me at all.

Why would it?

First, I speak both offi­cial lan­guages and com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the med­ical staff isn’t an issue. So far, all the doc­tors I met were Eng­lish speak­ers but that’s fine by me. I have no prob­lem under­stand­ing them and I’m famil­iar with the med­ical ter­mi­nol­ogy (its Latin roots are a dream for a native French speaker who took Latin in school!). If I hadn’t been flu­ent in Eng­lish (or French), I may have con­sid­ered going back “home”. Rely­ing on a trans­la­tor dur­ing a med­ical appoint­ment or not being able to com­mu­ni­cate your needs well must be very stressful.

I also trust the local health­care sys­tem. Let’s face it: it’s not per­fect but Cana­dian isn’t a third world coun­try. French love to brag about their great health­care sys­tem, but as good as it is, I can see its flaws now. I don’t trust French doc­tors more than Cana­dian doctors—why would I?

Both sys­tems have their strengths and weak­nesses. I decided very early on that I wouldn’t com­pare them because it seemed like the best way to drive myself crazy. Some tests are done in Canada and are unknown in France and vice-versa, some doc­tors are arro­gant ass­holes and some are great, and the preg­nancy police obsess over dif­fer­ent things. Big deal. Among the dif­fer­ences I heard men­tioned here and there, Canada focuses on dia­betes tests while France is wor­ried about tox­o­plas­mo­sis, the way to cal­cu­late ges­ta­tional weeks is slightly dif­fer­ent and Canada takes a more open pro-breastfeeding stance. Noth­ing earth shattering.

I find most French who com­plain about the Cana­dian health­care sys­tem do so because:

1. They are French and need to com­plain (okay, I admit it, I’m like that too some­times—blame it on our Latin roots!);
2. They don’t nav­i­gate the sys­tem well and keep on expect­ing things to be like in France;
3. They had a sin­gle bad expe­ri­ence that left a bad taste in their mouth.

All of these rea­sons are under­stand­able. If you are in Canada on a tem­po­rary visa or if you get preg­nant just after land­ing, maybe going back “home” makes sense.

All in all, things were eas­ier for me because I can’t really com­pare the two systems—I don’t know what hav­ing a baby in France is like.

So I’m happy to have a lit­tle Canadian-Chinese-French baby here in Ottawa. Maybe I’ll get a “good new cit­i­zen” bonus for help­ing pop­u­late the country?

Related arti­cles:

1. The First Trimester and the Baby Bump in France
2. 10 Things That Feel Great When You Are No Longer Pregnant
3. 10 Perks of Being Pregnant
4. The State Of Spain’s Health­care Sys­tem For Visitors
5. The Bean-Shaped Baby
6. Lucile And Mur­taza: From France and India to Montréal