jstn,
You are welcomed and hope that you find it useful. For dates, I think that you better remove the seed because of 太燥. My mom removed the seed when she put the dates into the tea but mainly used red dates. My mom put 紅棗、黨參、黃耆 in a frying pan and fry it without oil for a while. These can be added into the stir-fried rice after 12 days. Also, 杞子 can be added into the tea directly with fried rice from the very beginning.
Yesterday, I went for prenatal checkup and my ob said that I was already 2cm dilated. Since I have type b infection, once I feel the pain, I need to go to hospital because it takes 4 hours IV before the baby born. So, at evening time after my walk, I felt sort of painful at my belly and I shot to the hospital, the nurse and dr. checked me up and said that I was not dilated at all and my ob has not sent my info to the hospital yet.
Finally, I was sent home because my contraction was not too frequent and regular yet. I felt sort of stupid and finally arrived home and slept at 11:30am.
This afternoon, I started to have some red discharge and my mom said that it's one of the symptoms of getting into labor but some people takes a few days to have the baby delivered after having it. But, she also mentioned that 2nd pregnancy would be faster and easier for labor. So now, I can only wait and see. I need to finish the stir-fried rice tomorrow. I was not well-prepared yet because Spencer is sick these days, coughing and having a running nose. I just took him to see a doctor today and hope that he can get well soon. Otherwise, I will feel so guilty if I have to stay in hospital and he's sick at home.:-(
花旗太太生活在花旗國,留意時差,你問我未必即時答到。