36 weeks: 4 weeks left!

4 weeks left till lana's due date and one week till full term/maternity leave starts. i'm trying my best to enjoy these last few weeks before lana's here, despite the bodily challenges i am constantly faced with. as my mom keeps saying to me, "you think it's hard now? wait till she's out...and then you'll want her to crawl back in." is the "she" in that sentence referring to lana or me? hmph. and i know i've said this before, but sometimes i forget that being pregnant necessarily means that i'll soon become a mom and have a baby to take care of. or maybe it's not that i forgot, but that i never really got it in the first place. maybe it finally sinks in once you're up at 3am trying to shove your boob into a crying baby's mouth. at least that's how i imagine it. but seriously, once lana's born, i (and sh) will never not be a parent again. sheer craziness. i hope God knows what he's doing! haha.

body is heavier, baby is lower. stretching pains have morphed into stinging pains - the lower side of my belly feels like it's sunburnt and it's super sensitive to the touch. i went to the OB yesterday. i have officially broken the 130 pound threshold - i am now 130.8 pounds (but with clothes on!). holy moly. i know i haven't gained much weight but it's still crazy to see numbers on the scale you've never seen before in your life. i have an ultrasound thursday to estimate the weight of the baby (let's keep it low lana!) and from now on, i go to the doctor once a week so she can check on the progress of my dilation.

i have a question for moms - did your own moms (and maybe MILs) impose a lot of restrictions on you when you had the baby? i'm a little tired of hearing all these old wives' tales (mostly from my aunts) about what you can and can't do after having a baby. i'm trying to be open-minded but there's no freakin' way that i am not showering for up to a month afterwards. i've also heard: don't open the fridge, don't drink cold drinks, don't read, don't sit for too long, eat iron-rich foods 3x a day for a month, don't go outside for a month, don't take baby out for several weeks, etc. i'm not saying all of them are crazy, but it's hard to know what is crap and what might have some truth to it. the pediatrician in our childbirth class did say to keep baby away from crowded public places until 6-8 weeks of age, so that i'm ok with. but moms, if you know from personal experience either way, i'd be glad to hear it. and seriously, koreans can't be the only crazy ones when it comes to this stuff right? right? o_O

bump!