Welcome to LizaWasHere.

Some variation of “eggplant+restaurant+atlanta+induce+labor” is the most frequent search that brings people to my website, so if you are looking at this page, that’s probably why.

Below is my original post on that subject. You are probably more interested in one of the following:

• Does it work? Not for me. I went at 40w1d pregnant and didn’t have the baby until 41w. (35 hours after my water broke, not that you asked.)
• Where’s the restaurant? Scalini’s is in Smyrna, Georgia, just northwest of Atlanta.
• If I’m not in Atlanta, can I get the recipe? Yes. And even though it didn’t work for me, it was delicious.

The Original Post, February 4, 2006
We drove out to Scalini’s for dinner tonight, and I had their famous Eggplant Parmigiana. I’d heard mixed reviews of the restaurant, but frankly, dinner was delicious! Jill and her mom liked their meals too.

(My only fear is how hard this is going to be on my refluxive tummy. I don’t even remember the last time I ate that much tomato sauce. I suspect it’s been a decade or more. I’m 2 zantac in so far, and I feel it anyway. I’ll probably have some tums or rolaids shortly to address the basic symptoms.)

At the end of dinner, they take the preggo’s name & phone number, note the time you finished dinner, and if you call back having had a baby within 48 hours, you get a $25 gift certificate for dinner again, and a baby-sized Scalini’s t-shirt. If you send a picture of the baby, it will join a wall of babies in the front of the restaurant.

Entertainingly, at the next table over from ours, another couple was also having labor-inducing eggplant. Geoff, the dad, used to sit next to me at work!

He left the company 9 months ago, so we had no idea that each other was expecting! His wife is due this coming Friday. That was a lot of fun, and we agreed to keep one another posted on the eggplant’s success.

Smudge started kicking up a storm about 6 bites into dinner, and hasn’t really stopped since — pauses, but he always comes back to kicking. I hope that’s a good sign. I’ve also had several Braxton-Hicks contractions, but no “serious” signs of labor yet.

So would everyone please cross their fingers that the Eggplant Parmigiana was not only delicious, but also effective? The official end of dinner was 7:40 pm, so we’re hoping hoping hoping that Smudge makes his appearance by 7:40 pm on Monday. Of course, he’s welcome to come sooner.

Fruit & Veg Count, 2/4: 1 small organic gala apple, ~2 cups of eggplant parmigiana (maybe 3/4 cup eggplant, similar amount of chopped, cooked tomatoes? maybe closer to a cup of each?)