Pregnancy 1 vs Pregnancy 2

My own gloomy Eiffel Tower shot.

A few weeks ago I read an article, illustrated by a very gloomy picture of the Eiffel Tower, about how this winter has been one of the darkest ever on record in northern Europe, with Paris experiencing only ten hours of sunlight in the first half of January, compared to an average of 63 hours.

Suddenly, I understood why it has been so hard to get out of bed in the mornings. I don't think I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder or anything, but I suspect a difference as extreme as that must have an impact on most people.

I was also quite relieved. Any time I've mentioned feeling more tired during this pregnancy than the last one, people have said it's because I also have a toddler to look after, which wasn't exactly boding well for how things will go after baby number 2 is born.

Plus, my gut feeling was that it wasn't true. Physically, this pregnancy has been very similar to the last one, and while it's true that running around after SCT isn't exactly restful, in other ways life has become easier (not spending 2.5 hours per day commuting being one of the best examples).

It's been fun, however, to compare the two experiences in other ways.

Armed with my knowledge from last time, I found it easier to organise my medical care. For the first six months I saw a sage-femme libérale, and for the rest I got signed up easily at a maternity hospital with a very similar ethos to the one I went to in Paris. All the staff I've encountered so far have been lovely, and they don't seem to as overwhelmed with patient numbers and administrative issues, so everything is going smoothly so far.

Being busy with other things, I've probably spent less time thinking about the actual pregnancy, reading about every step of the baby's development and watching my bump move. This baby hasn't been neglected though: knowing what it was like the first time round has given me a more concrete idea of things to look forward to, and I'm actually finding it easier to be excited.

Then of course, there's the small matter of getting the baby out of there and into the world. I can't say that's something I'm looking forward to, but at least I have a better idea of what to expect and how to manage it all. They say that second births are generally easier, so fingers crossed I'm not going to be the exception to that rule!

Under Examination

Recently I finally did something I've had at the back of my mind for a long time: I took the language exam to obtain the certificate required in order to make a French citizenship application.

The Test de connaissance du français pour accès à la nationalité française is a shorter version of the full Test de connaissance du français, which evaluates the candidate's level of French within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages . The levels range from A1 (Breakthrough or Beginner) to C2 (Mastery or Proficiency). In order to apply for citizenship, you need level B1 (Threshold or Intermediate). In the ANF version, you only sit the oral parts of the exam, so there is a listening test followed by an interview to judge spoken expression.

Having studied French at university and lived in France for ten years, I wasn't worried about reaching the expected level, but I did feel a certain level of nervousness nonetheless. This was probably mostly because, precisely because I have studied French and lived here for so long, it would have been very embarrassing not to get a good score, even if the only people who knew I was taking the test were myself and Understanding Frenchman, and he probably knows my level of French better than anyone!

Also, while I think the questions in the test are probably very fair, the way it works is quite stressful because you have to listen to an audio clip and only when it's finished do you find out what the question about it will be. You only hear the clip and the question once, so in my mildly sleep deprived, pregnant state, I wasn't worried about not understanding the information, just about forgetting what had been said!

In the end, that only happened once, and I was happy with the level I came out with. The interview part was actually much less stressful, because it was face-to-face with a real person, who was very nice and made me feel at ease. For the final result, they combine the listening and speaking scores, so I have to wait a few weeks for the CIEP to mark the interview, but according to the feedback from the interviewer, everything went well.

What was funny, though, was the feeling of being under examination, and the accompanying nerves, because they made me realise that it's actually a really long time since I've been in that situation. I think the last official exam I sat was my driving test about a decade ago. Throughout my twenties I took endless university exams, followed by a string of job interviews as I got on the career ladder, but for the last few years, I've become far more used to being the examiner than the candidate. I don't think it made me any more nervous than I would otherwise have been, but the feeling of mild nerves was definitly less familiar than it used to be. I wonder if we really get more confident as we get older because we are more sure of ourselves, or just because our competence is less often put under scrutiny!

Life Update

I haven't felt particularly much like blogging recently. It's partly because although life is still very full and interesting to me, I'm not sure that much of what I do is of interest to anybody else, and partly because, for various reasons, I'm a bit wary of putting lots of personal things out there at the moment. (Even if I don't blog under my real name, I'm not fooling myself that anyone who knows a bit about me in real life might not figure out that this is me. So if you're reading this and we know each other - hi!) But then I read a few blogs I really like and felt inspired to make my own little contribution. So here is a quick round up of what we've been doing recently.

We went to the UK for Christmas. Travelling went pretty well on the way out but on the way back we had a long delay due to stormy weather and arrived back in Paris with a tired baby who was coming down with a tummy bug. It was definitely worth it, though, for a proper family Christmas with grandparents, uncle and auntie and SCB's slightly older cousin, who was unbelievably sweet with her. I also enjoyed all the UK traditions, like stockings and Christmas carols and sausages wrapped up in bacon, which we missed out on last year because we stayed in France. After that we headed out to Brittany for the new year and even more family time, this time with mamie and papy and the rest of UFM's relatives. We managed to stay up until midnight on New Year's Eve but I slipped into my pyjamas at around 11:30pm in order to be able to get straight into bed afterwards. (Luckily UFM's family are very laid back and this was completely socially acceptable!)

I've been back at work for a few days now and things are already feeling quite hectic. I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish before I go off on maternity leave, so I'm kind of putting pressure on myself, while at the same time coping with the third trimester of pregnancy, looking after a toddler, and various things that we need to do at home before baby number 2 is born. I'm telling myself it's only for a few weeks and hoping I can hang in there until it's officially time to drop it all and rest.

SCB should really be called SCT these days, standing for Super Cool/Cute/Crazy Toddler, depending on the moment (and sometimes all at once). Her language is coming on and she now has quite a few words, including a very definite MORE in English, chaussures in French (it's a bit of an obsession) and a good range of onomatopoeia, including "vroom" for cars and "wow-wow" for dogs. Other recent tricks include pointing to us and saying "mama" and "papa", then to herself and saying her own name, which melts my heart every time (and I think she knows it!) and, as of this evening, peeling her own clementines.

That's all for now ... but creating this post has given me a few ideas for other things to write about, so maybe it won't be quite so long until the next one.