9 weeks old

Still going back and updating the days I've missed - I promise.

Today though, we go to the normal GP in the village - for Eloise's two month check. She's measured,: she's 57cms and now weighs 5.5kgs and the page in her carnet de sante is filled in. Her hips are checked and she is put onto her tummy to see if she pushes up with her hands and holds her head up.

She has two lots of injections (one on each cheek of her bum poor thing.) and she screams the place down. This visit is 100pc paid for by the CPAM - the Euro27 I pay the doctor will be refunded via the carte vitale.

Epidural checkup

Off to the Clinique St Roch today in the middle of Montpellier for my appointment to see the anaesthetist about the epidural.

I got off the tram at the Stade Phillipides - got totally lost with only 5 mins before my appointment was due... I'm waddling and Alicia says she's tired.

After going to the wrong department (and even taking a ticket - it was here last time I was here 4 years ago...) I was redirected and then got signed in very quickly - waited only 5 minutes and was called in before anybody else in the waiting room. The doctor was extremely tanned - wearing scrubs and had a St Christopher around his neck... he asked Alicia her name and introduced himself as Christian. After reading my notes, he took my blood pressure and asked my weight before pregnancy and today and asked if I smoked. He didn't even look at my back. I was out in 5 minutes.

Euro28 thank you very much. They didn't accept carte vitales ... so another brown form.
... and a form to fill in for my husband in case I need someone to switch off the life support machine.

And the big news - I finished packing the hospital bag - after a visit to Kiabi to buy nighties and nursing bras.

That dratted carte vitale

So yesterday, new card in hand, we went to the doctor's for Alicia's yearly school medical certificate - to find that she isn't registered on my card - arrggghhh! So, do we just use daddy's card each time or try and get her added on mine? I'm losing the will to live here...

Anyway, the medical consisted of weight / height / listening to her heart / checking her spine and looking in her ears - Euro25 thank you very much (refunded by the CPAM and mutuelle of course, but even so....) You also need a medical certificate if she has swimming lessons or ballet or anything like that too... so make sure you think about that before you leave the doctor's office.

Carte Vitale

My new carte vitale (complete with photo) arrives in the post - youpi!

More from CPAM

Today we receive an attestation to say that again, I am actually covered 100pc by the Caisse Maladie until 12 days after the birth.... youpi, French paperwork, we are getting there... nothing about my new carte vitale though.

Moving house paperwork nightmares

After letting the www.caf.fr and the Caisse Maladie know that we have moved house - we get the surprises in the post.

The Caisse Allocations Familiale give you child benefit money / money towards your rent or mortgage if you are on a low income and a prime de naissance 2 months before you are due to give birth - so it's good to keep in with them. On discovering we'd moved house they decided we obviously didn't need more money so we got a letter saying please send back the last Euro213 we sent you - no explanation no nothing... so down to the CAF I traipse and come back with 5 sheets of paper to fill in with our present family situation and 2 bits of paper for the mortgage bank to fill in about our house - so it does look like we can have a little money still - watch this space.

The CPAM Maladie people just sent us an attestation saying that hubby and kiddy number 1 are still valid for their medical insurance, but I am 'a justifier' - bizarre as we've done nothing but move house (oh yes and I married him too). I also find out that the chip in my green carte vitale has died too and needs looking at (probably overwork).

To date I've been covered under my husband to be's (now husband's) social security number just because I live with him - I have been salaried since January 2007 but never changed over my medical insurance to my own - I just never thought it would make a difference... UNTIL you need to claim conge maternite money ... (maternity benefit).

So I need now to get the following papers together:

My Carte vitale
My attestation de droit (from the green borne in the CPAM office?)
Livret de famille (marriage certificate with kids born on it)
Carte de sejour (or passport)
Demande de rattachement a la CPAM (a form they've given me to fill in)
A medicine traitant form to register with a doctor (I've done this before but seems I have to do it again...)
First and last wage slips
The obligatory EDF electric bill (proof of address - I swear you could travel the world on one of these...)
A RIB (direct debit form from the bank)
.. And a partridge in a pear tree!

The Amnio...

Up at 6am to leave home at 7am (the clinique is awful to get to at rush hour and we can't very well go on the tram today) - the journey finally only takes 35 mins and thankfully we are allowed to park in the clinique's car park.

We are told to be there at 8am for our 8.15am appointment - 15 minutes to queue and do the paperwork. The ask for an attestation from the CPAM (no one told us to take one...) then she saw my carte vitale and said it would be OK... but then the carte vitale wasn't up to date. My husband runs downstairs to the 'borne' to update it - he then runs 4 flights upstairs again (he didn't want to wait for the lift) and we find the bloomin' machine didn't update it.. she promises to hold the papers as long as we bring in an attestation within the week.... She takes a signed authorisation form to saw we agree to the procedure - then Euro50 from us and another CPAM brown form for the actual lab. work required (no idea how much that is) and the carte vitale is to pay for our day room for after the procedure.

We then go back down 4 flights in the lift to the radiology department and are called within a couple of minutes. My husband isn't allowed into the room (apparently too many husbands faint) - my gyne is there and and the radiologist who will scan my tummy at all times.

To cut a long story short - it is over in minutes - it sounds an awful procedure but even without any pain relief - I can actually say it was more painful to have an injection in your arm... it really wasn't that bad.

Then I find that my legs have turned to jelly and I can hardly waddle to the waiting room again. 2 minutes later we are taken in the lift to the day rooms on the 4th floor for our 2 hours of lying down and a cup of tea and a baguette and jam breakfast.

Enroute in the lift with my husband, a nurse and a porter - I burst into tears and then continued to cry for another hour... all the stress of waiting for it I suppose.. but really in the end it wasn't so bad.

Somebody comes into the bed next to me... and then she bursts into tears... obviously it's catching...

We're told by the gyne that I'm meant to do absolutely nothing for 48 hrs... sounds bliss. The gyne will call me in 10 days with the results.

Back to the gyne on 5th May for a routine check up