French News

News from France

It is always very hard to start the newsletter, so I shall start it like this, thus saving time and avoiding the use of a weak excuse for why this letter has taken so long to reach you………………

The main News is about Charlie Fahrenheit and his impact. It would be easy to leave the newsletter at that and let those of you who have already had children to sagely think back to your own experiences, nod wisely and say

“I understand”.

However, I'm sure there are people reading this who have not had children, and who knows? We may even have put our own unique spin on some of the build up!

So please do be prepared for all the gory details!

Picking up the pieces of the story so far, I'm sure it is no secret that I had not been looking forward to having children! I had managed to avoid it for 46 years and so when it came to being made aware of the details I felt somewhat out of my depth.

We had several meetings with the doctor who would be assisting at the birth and he made Louise feel very much at ease, confirming my previous ideas back the French health system suits us better than the English one.

Sometimes it's just little things. For instance the doctor actually performed the scan himself, so one had the feeling that he actually was aware of absolutely what was going on inside Louise first hand, without having to rely on the pictures or reports provided to him via a technician. I don't know how many of you have looked at the printouts of an ultrasound scan but for most of the pregnancy I was convinced we were giving birth to either a speck of dust or a potato.

At one of the many meetings we had with him, ( due to the two false starts we had in the baby department), he did offer if we wanted to go to some kind of lessons/classes which were, I suspect, a token gesture to the equivalent of the British antenatal classes.

Louise said she didn't want to go, I suspect because she may have felt a little shy about it all being in French and I certainly didn't want to go, regardless of whether it was in French or English!

Louise did avail herself of many books on the subject( another example of how living in a foreign country today is much easier than B.I (before Internet)) Again my reluctance to be involved , meant that if she wanted me to be reading any of the books that she had bought, she had to leave them on the shelf next to the loo where most of my written knowledge is assimilated.

I did read some of some of the books, and I think on balance, I probably wish I hadn't!

The other thing that needed arranging was the schedule of visitors pre- birth and post-birth. As the baby was going to be born in France it meant that the family had to be prepared to visit here in South West France, so days off work, flights and a lodgings timetable need to be organised so that we didn't have everybody trying to cram into our little house at the same time.

Louise's mum got the pre-birth and birth slot. Its is worth mentioning here that this was the estimated birth slot and that had Charlie been late, one of the other family members would have been here for the birth.

As stated, I am not an expert in the field, but one of the areas that I have found very difficult to understand about the birth, is the predicted birth date. Now, I had always imagined that the key number was nine months from conception to birth. Of course, I realise that babies can be early or late, and I had imagined that as nine months was the figure that was bandied around , therefore someone had previously done some statistical research and found that this was where the fat part of the Bell curve was, hence 9 months became the standard figure.

However when I asked the Doc the key question about when the expected birth date was, the French doctor pulls out a little round of cardboard dial that looks like it came with packet of cornflakes and asks Louise when her last period was, so he could dial this date into the cornflake disk so he could predict the date of conception and thus the birth date.

Two points here worth mentioning…

Now I don't want to get too involved with these details, however as things transpired, due to the false starts, Louise had actually been pregnant for 2 years and so hadn’t had a period for ages,

added to this the same medical condition that cause her to miscarry, also made it difficult for her to get pregnant, this meant that I could probably supply more accurate information on the timing of the conception, than him asking when she last had a period.

And this is where more confusion began. This is due to the English system for predicting the date of the birth using a different number of weeks from conception to birth than the French ( I believe it varies by two or four weeks). Now, Louise has explained to me that there is a very good reason for this (by good reason, she means one that works for her), however I, on the other hand, believe that there should be a certain standard number of days, weeks, , poles, perches, bushels etc etc from when the act of union was performed and the day the little blighter pops out covered in gloop. However this is not the case and it is still something that the parents of Charlie disagree about.

As you might expect, it fell to Louise to pack the birthing bag for both her and me. She does not have a very good record in packing clothes for me to go on holiday, so I did check to make sure that she put some of my underwear in my bag this time!

We also took the precaution of changing the car for the birth.

Sadly, my dear old Mercedes that fell like a pair of comfy slippers( although probably less reliable!), was getting more and more difficult to justify keeping . Apart from the increase in the price of petrol due the doubling of a price of a barrel of oil since we have been in France, plus the increasing problems associated either with me trying to improve the performance or save money by servicing it myself, meant that more and more bits of it were falling off. As the bump became larger, Louise became more and more insistent that she did not want to rely on that thing for the journey to the hospital. So we are now the proud owners of a newer diesel Passat.

I still cannot bring myself to dispose of the old car, it is used for pulling the trailer round the garden, laden with sand and logs, and I have plans to remove the seats from the Merc to have Top Gear studio-look furniture in the future games room ( currently labelled as the barn).

As time went on forward planning, however unappealing to me on the subject of the birth, was not an area that could be avoided . Prams , changing stations and 101 other bit of a baby paraphernalia were sourced.

One of the advantages of being an older parent is that I have quite a large network of friends and relations who have already had children and have decided not to have any more and have a large stock of some of these items which they availed us of which we were very grateful for.

Fast forward to the night of October the 24th 2006.

Wash my dog

Act four, scene one.

Scene:- The kitchen/ diner complete with trestle table chipboard worktop with a hole cut out for sink and covered in sticky back plastic ( Chipboard, not sink, covered with plastic, that would be stupid wouldn’t it?) Around the dinner table Janet, David, Louise and I finishing dinner and playing cards

Louise. “ Oh I just wish he'd come out now! Why is it taking so long?”
this was followed by pacing up and down, the card game continuing with sympathetic platitudes all around

Louise “Ow ow ow OWWWW, can you rub my back for me please”?

Alastair. Standing up and rubbing her. “ So darling it is helping?”

this dialogue was repeated several times and sure enough the contractions did go off!!

Louise was convinced that this was the knocking on the door, the preamble for a big push!

As things moved on the card game got less and less important and Louise’s condition became more and more important (which was a shame as I believe we were winning)!

Finally we decided we should ring the hospital explain the situation and ask if we shouldn't make the dash. We telephoned the hospital and Louise explained the situation and they suggested we come right away. So we collected our bags, jumped in the car which knew its way to the hospital automatically by now, and off we set.

Earlier in the pregnancy we had tried to see if there was a short cut from a house to the hospital in a more straight line route rather than the longer way round the hills, however after three quarters of an hour we were completely lost and we decided that on the grounds of discretion being the better part of valor, we would stick to the long way round.

We turned up at what I later discovered to be the accident and emergency section of the hospital at 12 o'clock midnight, to find a brightly lit glass foyer, locked with no one there. We had to ring a bell and speak into a little grille to get someone to come and let us in.

Once there after the customary French form filling had been completed we were shown up to a room for Louise whereupon, after a quick examination she was told that the baby wouldn't be arriving at any time in the next seven hours and that it was probably a bit silly to go home and come back, why not stay overnight in the bed where they had installed her for the exam.

Another example of my good impression of the French medical system was that they said to Louise that there was a big a room with two beds in it and would I like to stay for the night as well?

I readily accepted and was all set to stay up and watch French TV, however we agreed after about half an hour of watching, it was probably more sensible to grab some sleep

I do remember being woken several times in the night and asked to perform backrub duty . I'm not sure how much good it ever did because I suspect the pain would have gone away when the contraction ended whether I'd rubbed or not, but I did what I could (if that makes the reader feel better).

I have a slightly less detailed recollection of being woken up, as Louise was being wheeled out of the room for what I imagined was the birth. However upon stirring, I was reassured that she was going for an epidural instead. I was offered the opportunity to go along for the ride , thankfully, Louise kindly saved me the embarrassment of saying no, by making sure that the staff knew that if I was dragged along, it would only lead to another in-patient, when I fainted and cracked my head on the table on the way down!

The next thing I knew (and bear in mind this narrative is being told from the father's point of view rather than others) was a French nurse calling to me at six o'clock in the morning saying that it was time. So five minutes later, I was dutifully by the bed in the delivery room , well up towards the top end of the bed holding Louise's hand. Louise had nothing but good things to say about the epidural and from what I remember she didn't seem to be in abject agony, so , so far, so good. A straightforward, trouble-free birth beckoned.

Apart from my reluctance to actually be looking after a baby, I also suffer from acute squeamishness, tending to fainting This means that I steadfastly avoided any television programme where any kind of medical procedure involving anything more gruesome than massage is shown. I also avoid trying to talk about any invasive medical procedures even when I need to have them done to me.

My discomfort also extends to peoples delight in telling me about either theirs, or someone else’s surgery. Consequently, I was concerned that should I be present, for what can only be described as a jolly painful and semi-invasive experience, I'd need to be positioned well towards the Northern end of the proceedings.

I'd very carefully made sure to wedge myself up against the wall behind the head rest so that I had a part of my body leaning against the wall and part of my left thigh half leaning, half sitting on the bed. This meant that any leg wobbliness could be disguised and not draw valuable medical resource away from the task in hand.

I was then able to lean over and make comforting noises and narrow my field of vision to only the top end of the bed. This seemed to be working quite well, as I was feeling nervous about feeling queasy, but hadn't actually got to the feeling queasy stage yet. Sadly much of my recollection of the birth has been wiped by my subconscious, which leapt into self preservation mode. The following section is therefore pieced together from Louises recollection, whose memory of events surpassed mine, despite her mind being occupied with other matters.

I think everything seemed to be going all right, no blood, no screaming, no machines going beep, no electric paddles being rushed in.

There was a little moment of worry when the doctor informed me that the cord had been wrapped around the baby's neck.

I thought this sounded serious, however, with my level of medical expertise, I quietly deferred to him. He seemed to think that this was nothing serious and that everything should go ahead.

I then got seriously more worried when he reached out for some enormous stainless steel chopsticks welded together at one end to make an obscenely vicious looking pair of killer tweezers and promptly started using them to lever poor little Stephen Junior out.

Again I concentrated hard on the top of the bed rather than the business end and just tried to ignore everything else, concentrated on soothing Louise is much as I could, and taking deep breaths as quietly as I could.

Then quite suddenly he was out.

Louise was absolutely delighted and relieved and the doctor looked relieved, I started feeling a little queasy, but luckily no one noticed as the wall and the bed were doing a marvellous job of keeping me upright.

I really thought I was going to get away with it, right up until when the doctor held up the baby and explained to me in very graphical terms by making me look at the baby that the cord had not been wrapped once, but twice round the poor little sods neck! At this stage my son resembled what can only be described as a soggy looking monkey.

Hairless, covered with birthing goo , and generally looking objectionable, (which I'm sure was perfectly normal!) I had realised that he would be born with goo, its just that realising it just doesn't really make up for actually seeing it!

Again I may possibly have been able to get away with it if the sodding doctor had not insisted that as part of the macho Basque culture , I should go down the other end, cut the cord and tie it myself.

I tried explaining that I wasn't very good at this type of thing, having already explained to the doctor that I was of a nervous disposition when it came to any form of medical gloop. He insisted that I cut the cord on this horrible slimy soggy looking monkey and at this stage my subconscious called time and I collapsed.

I'm told by Louise what happened next because I was unaware of it. The doctor threw the baby at Louise to hold and he and the midwife scampered round to my side of the table to put me on a chair and put my head between my knees, as if this was some huge medical surprise to them.

I kept trying to explain to them that I had warned them, but it is amazing how difficult it is to remember the verb to warn someone, when the whole of the rest of the world is dissolving around it and going black around the edges! However my party piece seemed to do the trick as I was very firmly told that it would now be a good idea, if I went with the nurse to get the baby cleaned and dressed up, while the doctor had delivered the afterbirth. I have to say I agree with him, however I think if only he'd listened to my advice, at beginning, the birth, it would have gone a lot smoother for all concerned!

We now come to a ritual that I'm sure has troubled many people during the pregnancy.

The naming of the monkey.

In an ideal world, I would leave little blighter unnamed until he could decide what name he like to select for himself. This however, does pose several disadvantages and complications early in life that can be difficult, I understand, to rectify later!

So it fell to the next two most important people to decide the name. In no particular order these were Louise and I.

Sadly, as in so many things, Louise and I had different ideas.

In our relationship this does mean that we generate a large amount of ideas, but it does normally involve a lot of discussion before things are decided. Apparently, because I'm growing old and have eaten too many potatoes, my idea of what we decided is not necessary the same as Louise’s, when we discuss it two weeks later!

I remember Louise wanting Archie as a name which reminded me of a little dog. I, on the other hand was keen on very strong unusual names like Troy, Achilles and Fibonacci (who at the time, I was convinced was something to do with fractals, but later I suspected, I may have stuck that name in my head after a character mentioned in the TV series prison break!)

I also looked at car names. You only have to listen to Jenson Button being talked about, to realise how cool it would be to have your child named after a car. If, for example, you are hoping that he would follow in the footsteps of Jenson button and be a fortune earning racing driver.

Chrysler for example was one of my favourites.

Cadillac for a little girl,

Mercedes which was a Spanish name, long before it was the name of a large luxury German carmaker!

Thankfully, all these were vetoed at a very early stage and we were still stuck with what to call him. By this time we knew he was going to be a little boy, having been pre-identified in very French doctor style, when, during a scan he remarked on the size of his hem hem.

“Funny”, I thought, as I peered at the swirling mass of the echograph,

“ I cant even see the blessed baby, let alone his hem hem”!

We finally settled on Charlie as a first name although I was pushing very hard for Troy, the negotiating went along these lines….

“You can’t have Troy as a second name and that’s an end of it”

I was very keen not to call him Charles, in case people thought that we in any way thought that the Prince of Wales had any redeeming qualities that would make us name our son after him.

Some wag did tell me that I was the only person he knew who had named one of his children after a Class A drug and enquired jokingly, whether, if we had a little girl we were going to call her Crystal Meth!

So we compromised on Charlie Maximillian Stephen.

I thought this had the added bonus of being able to stealthily sneak in mock Scottish nomenclature to go with my ancestry by shortening the Maximillian to Max and the say Max and Stephen, very quickly, getting MacStephen as in Macdonald's (if you see what I mean)?

However I was still disappointed that we hadn't really got anything strikingly unusual and I was fretting about this on the journeys backwards and forwards from the hospital and home while I was busy trying to hold down my new job.

Now, I'm told by some of my kind readers that perhaps I shouldn't go off on semi-tangents, but that's the way the words come to me and who cares what they think anyway, so I should mention tangentially here that Charlie was born at six o'clock in the morning and by 10 o'clock in the morning I had already driven two hours or more to show some people around a house.

This was in my new role as estate agent and I was soon wandering around the empty house I was showing, forgetting where I'd left the keys, forgetting where I'd left the file, and saying to these poor people Wilma and Steve every half hour, that I just remembered I'm a dad!

They bought the house, so luckily, my abandoning Louise half an hour after the birth to say

“I'm sorry darling I have to go and show some punters a house.”

ended up starting us off on the road to estate agency!

Back to the main storyline ……… driving along in the car trying to think of whether I really had put enough effort into choosing the name for Stephen Junior

I was trying to make sure I wouldn't ever catch myself thinking later, that Marmaduke was a good name and that I wish I'd thought of that for him when there was still time to do it.

Having said that ,we didn't have a lot of time to make sure we got the name registered, because by law in France you have to do this within 72 hours of the birth ( I’m not quite sure what happens if you don't, they probably name it after a fish or a president with a big nose or something)

As I was driving along, with perhaps 36 hours to go, I happened to hear on the radio the Queen song “Don't stop me now”

This song bought back great memories for me, from when I was younger, Trevor and I hurtling through the middle of Spain in a souped-up Beetle when this song was on one of the compilation tapes we had in the car. I remember feeling fantastically uplifted and generally in a good mood when we played it.

I also remember that it was very difficult to subsequently try and find on any of Queens records at that time, I distinctly remember going into the virgin Megastore to try and find a CD with the song on and even asked the man at the desk with a big black reference book and he couldn't find it.

As I was listening to the radio , the song came to the line in the song that goes….

“200 degrees, that's why they call me Mr Fahrenheit”

And I immediately thought how cool it would be to be called Mr Fahrenheit and after that there was no stopping me!!

Fortunately I managed to float the idea to Louise who agreed, before dashing off and registering it anyway at the mayor's office, while she was safely tucked up in bed with Charlie.

As Fahrenheit was an interesting and perhaps underrated scientist, I managed to swing this angle on her although I think the song probably helped as well.

Now I can see a lot of people reading this and beginning to say “oh dear poor little mite, he's going to get beaten up when he's at school”!

Well, I have two responses

Probably not because he's going to be seen as weird anyway, having given him the spelling of the girl's name in France. Charlie with ie at the end , plus having weird foreign parents.

Secondly they have very weird names anyway in France, so I don't suppose anyone is ever going to be calling him Charlie Fahrenheit as the French might call someone Jean-Claude or Jean-Paul.

And the main reason is that if he decides he wants to be a rock star, Charlie Fahrenheit will trip off the tongue so much better than Charlie Stephen

As in all these things, if he really doesn't like it, he can change it himself later!!

As mentioned, in France you have to register the birth at the Mayors office nearest to where he was born ( the baby, not the mayor) within 3 days. ( It’s not explained in detail what happens if you don’t , perhaps they choose a name for you? But it is impressed on you at the hospital that you need to do it.

They didn’t bat an eyelid! Either they have weird names all the time, or they just assumed it was a traditional British name.

As I finish this note as Lou is putting Charlie to bed and tidying the toys away, me re-reading back over the birth, it seems like an age away.

More news about a year after it happens. The next letter will be an expose of the life of an estate agent and debutant mum and dad, together with the catalogue of destruction following Mr Fahrenheit.

Lou , Al and Charlie