The temptation of Verbena

I found this today whilst tidying. Girlchild painted it for me on a canvas that is about 1.5"x1.5", so that is quite a detailed little painting. "Big Butt Kitty with Wings"

I am now in the 'weekly' visit stage of my pregnancy, so I trooped my immenseness and Girlchild into the doctor's office today for my check up, and GBS swab. Girlchild was a champ. I told her I did not want her looking at the doctor swabbing my ladybits, and she promised she would stare just at my face. Then she said, slyly, "Orrrrrrr, you could let me play with your phone....." My phone is usually forbidden to her, so I thought this was actually brilliant. She didn't look up once from it.

During my visit with the doctor, we discussed how the next 3 weeks will go. I am tentatively scheduled for induction on 24 July, but hey, if I can get going sooner, I'm all over that. He told me about this crazy concoction of lemon verbena, apricot juice, almond butter and castor oil that the local midwives have been using. Gave me just enough info, in fact, that I am totally capable of figuring this out on my own, thanks to Google.

So for the last 3 hours I've been trying to figure out where I would buy apricot juice. Let me just tell you, women are horrible to one another, and should never ever share their birth stories. I've heard more horror stories about labouring at our local hospital than I care to recall, and all of them start with 'I went in to be induced'. So I'm nervous. Everything I read about the verbena thing today sounded very very positive with regards to going-into-labour-instantly.

At any rate, baby is guaranteed a NICU stay, I will get whichever pediatrician is on call (I've mentioned I'm a nurse, right? I have very very strong opinions on this), induction date is agreed upon by my doc and I, GBS swab is in the lab, I'm having a sizing ultrasound on Friday (taking Girlchild so she can see Tadpole Jones) and my blood sugars were awesome today!

In other news, I had a couple of girlfriends over today for some medieval crafting. It was awesome. We laughed, and joked, and talked about men, and were generally good girlfriends being inappropriate. Just what my heart needed. Of course, I totally forgot to take pictures of any of the finished projects, but let me just take a photo of what I did.

Ta-da!

I did not make the beads on this festoon. I just strung the top strand. There is a huge amount of bells because people should be warned that Girlchild is approaching. The trefoil in the centre I made. The other two danglers are awards she's received. I also did not make the brooches. And the  black thread on the left side there, that's for her to make another festoon tomorrow because I promised her a medieval crafts day.