たくさんの薬

２ヶ月になるJuneですが、毎日たくさんの薬を飲んでいます。まず、Vitamine K1 Roche。これは、母乳を飲み続ける限り、週１飲まなければなりません。次に、Uvesterolという、ビタミン剤（A, D, E, C）。これは毎日飲ませます。

病院から帰宅してちょっとから June がしょっちゅう授乳後に吐くようになり、胃食道逆流症ということで小児科の先生に薬を処方してもらっています。Mopral というのは胃酸抑制薬で、これは毎日一回。Gaviscon は消化不良治療薬で、授乳後に飲ませます。これは１日５回と言われていますが、とてもまずいらしく、飲んだ後の June の反応があまりにもかわいそうなので、３回にしています。Motilium は消化器官・消化管運動改善薬で、１日４回授乳１５分前に飲ませます。

フランス人は薬好きです。最近読んだBBCの記事によると、ヨーロッパで一番多く抗生物質を消費しているそうです。東京ではどの街角にもコンビニがありますが、パリでは同じくらいたくさんの薬局があります。普段から極力薬を飲まないように努力していた私は、最近まで薬局に足を踏み入れることはほとんどありませんでした。でも、妊娠して、そして子どもを生んでから、薬局にお世話になるようになりました。

これだけの薬が本当に必要なんでしょうか。確かに June の症状はだいぶ良くなってきました。授乳直後はまだ１日１回くらい吐きますが、以前ひどかった、授乳２～３時間後に消化されかけたものを吐き出してしまう（とても苦しそう）はほとんどなくなってきました。夜中に June の叫び声で起こされることはなくなりましたが、お腹が痛そうなのは相変わらずです。

これだけの薬を飲ませ続けるかどうか、最近悩んでいます。

クリスマス・ケーキ

パリでの４回目のクリスマスでを過ごしました。２００６年は日本にいましたが、それ以外年末年始はフランスで過ごしています。我が家はクリスチャンではないので基本的にクリスマスは祝わないのですが、この時期に色々店に並ぶので、美味しいものだけは食べています。

フランスでよくクリスマスに食べられるのは、オイスターやロブスター （Homard） などのシーフード、フォアグラや肉で作られるパテ、鳥のロースト （七面鳥が定番ですが、我が家ではほろほろ鳥を食べています、これはチキンより一回り大きい鳥で、とても美味しい） などで、シャンパンを飲みます。そして、もちろん、クリスマス・ケーキ。

フランスではクリスマスといえば、Bûche de Noël。切り株の形をしているケーキです。普通のケーキ屋さんで売っているのは、バタークリームでできていて単調な味で、私はあまり好きではありません。これまで色々試していますが （毎年たいてい３個くらい買っています）、私が一番好きなのは、Pierre Herme のもの。３－４人分で３７ユーロとずいぶん高いのですが、その価値は十分あると思います。今年は Mogador という、パッションフルーツ風味のチョコレートケーキ （中にパイナップルが入っている） ものにしました。去年は３０分以上寒い中並んで末、売り切れで手に入れることができなく失敗したので、今年は何日か前に電話で注文しました。Bûche を取りに行ったのは、Pasteur というメトロの駅の外に設置されていたテント。ここでさえ１５分くらい並びました。すごい人気ですね。

さて、日本ではクリスマスというとイチゴのショートケーキですが （これはなぜでしょう？季節はずれにイチゴを食べるのもおかしいですね）、ショートケーキをフランスで見たことがありません。ケーキの定番はタルト （チョコレートかフルーツ系のもの）、ミルフィーユ、ガトー・オ・ショコラ、クレーム・ブリュレ、オペラ。それ以外のケーキはムースかクリームが主なものになり、スポンジケーキは売られないようです。

あと、たいていのケーキ屋さんで売っているケーキはあまり美味しくありません。また、普通パン屋さんで売っているケーキは避けたほうが無難です。ちょっと値段は張るのですが、我々が美味しいケーキを食べたい時は Gérard Mulot、Lenôtre、Maison Kaｙser （これはパン屋ですがケーキも美味しい） などの有名なところで買っています。全て日本に進出しているお店ですね。

この季節また楽しみなのは、Galette des Rois。これは年始に食べるもので、また後ほど報告します。

Falling in love

It was not love at first sight. When our eyes locked for the first time, it was not under the best of circumstances; our subsequent encounters were by no means any better.

It is perhaps surprising, then, that we did end up falling in love--well, I did, anyway. When I am not with her, images of her flash in my head. Spending all my days and nights with her has not made me tired of her, but rather, strengthened this feeling I have for my baby, June. She is perhaps the sweetest being that I have ever set my eyes upon.

I learn a new kind of love... it's rooted in the knowledge that I would empty my bank account for her. That I would lay down my life for her. That I would pick up arms for her. That I will defend her against all evil. It's a kind of love so primal and all-encompassing that it would necessitate psychiatric intervention if it involved another adult.
- Sandra Steingraber, in Having Faith -

It is definitely a feeling that was neither immediate nor automatic; motherly love is not instinctive. There were times when we were still in the hospital--especially during botched breastfeeding sessions, before my milk came in--that I was in despair, unsure I could take care of, let alone love, this being.

I definitely feel that this love has been cultivated through the 8- to 12- times daily breastfeeding sessions with her. They are real occasions of intimacy, in many respects. It is through these sessions that I get to know her better--her various facial expressions (she is like a chameleon, really; looking serene and sweet as an angel one moment, all scrunched up with a frog-like expression and screaming her heart out the next), the capillaries on her face, the fine hair on her head, the delicate lines of her lips, the creases that form her ears, each of her eye lashes. Knowing that whatever I consume is conveyed to her, I am careful, more than ever, about what I eat, and the medicine I take. It is definitely a different relationship than when she was within me, perhaps more intense in a way.

The relationship of a mother with her suckling infant is considered to be the strongest of human bonds. Holding the infant to the mother's breast to provide total nutrition and nurturing creates an even more profound and psychological experience than carrying the fetus in utero
- director, Breastfeeding and Human Lactation Study Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York -

I am grateful for the opportunity to breastfeed my daughter, and I hope that I will be able to cultivate this relationship for as long as I can.

The birth

Now that more than four weeks have passed since the birth of my daughter, I feel that I am ready to reflect on the experience, which was, unfortunately, a rather disappointing one.

I should start by saying that I am by no means regretting what happened; I am glad that my daughter and I both survived the experience unscathed, and that's what matters. It is just that the process was not at all I had expected, or had hoped for; however, I am also aware that these things never go as expected, and of course I fully accept the course of events that took place.

The birth was, in short, an over-medicalized experience. The moment I walked into the emergency ward at the Notre-Dame de Bon Secours hospital--which I decided to do because I felt that my blood pressure was mounting and I had developed a splitting headache--I was doomed. Because of my soaring blood pressure--which reached 180/120 at one point--and considering that I was 38 weeks pregnant, it was decided that the birth would be induced. 20 hours after some gel was inserted inside my cervix to induce labour, my mucus plug was removed by the midwife, and I was given medication to regularize my contractions. Being tied to several intravenous drips, I was immobilized; when the anesthesiologist came into the birthing room, I readily accepted the epidural. When my dear daughter was born, she was swiftly taken away--and I did not get to see her again until an hour or so after birth, and only in an incubator. After the initial birth, it was more than a day later that I was able to hold my daughter in my arms.

What went wrong? I will start off by saying that the hospital where I gave birth did not provide the holistic care that I needed. The doctor who was supposedly in charge of me saw me only twice during the course of my pregnancy. Even though I went to the hospital regularly, I was seen by different people each time--technicians for various tests, doctors for ultrasound, examinations, and information on anesthesia, and midwife for examinations, etc.--no one person looked at all the test results and examinations, and monitored my total well-being. All the results were in my file, but did anyone spend more than two minutes looking at them? If they had, perhaps the seriousness of my hypertension would not have been overlooked. What would have happened had I decided not to go to the hospital when I had?

In addition, for the duration of my and my daughter's hospitalization, we saw so many caregivers I lost count--a midwife would come once a day to give me medication and ask how I was doing; a nurse would come and take my blood pressure and temperature; another nurse would come and give me some shots, or take blood for tests. I think I saw the same nurse/midwife only twice max. A few of them would have the courtesy to introduce themselves, most did not even bother. As for doctors, four came my way--one to tell me that birth would have to be induced; another doing his rounds while I was being monitored after birth; and two anesthesiologists. Only one of these doctors came to see me more than once (and all of them for duration of no more than five minutes!)

For someone who had hoped for a natural birth experience and had done prior research into it, the over-medicalized turn of events was rather disappointing. Birth was not the life-transforming experience that I had been expected to believe; I was a mere passive participant in a process where I was delivered of my baby, instead of actively giving birth.

In any case, I am more or less fully recovered now--the lochia has stopped, the episiotomy has healed (and no, the midwife did not inform me she was performing this beforehand, just as she did not tell me before manually removing the mucus plug!), I no longer have haemorrhoids, I am nearly (but not quite!) back to my pre-pregnancy weight. My coccyx is the only thing that reminds me on a daily basis the trauma of the birth experience. Now nearly all my time and effort is taken up for taking care of my daughter. That's a whole different story!