And all of a sudden, my due date is this Sunday! Which means that baby girl decided not to come really early, and I’ve been left with what feels like a lot of extra time on my hands. Of course, there is a ton of stuff that I could be doing, with our house addition alone there are about a million decisions that would be great to decide on now. But, when you’re super pregnant and dealing with another heat wave of weather close to 100 degrees, you’re just trying to survive.

When I’m not daydreaming over 70 degree weather or trying to find the coolest place in the house to sit for 2 minutes before I need to hug a toddler in distress, I’ve been finally getting around to adding some things to my hospital bag, fixing cloth diapers, and making soup! Yes, making hot soup, on very hot days.

Unlike my last two deliveries, my mom won’t be coming to stay with us right away. This time around, we’re living with Pat’s parents and it will be over a month before my mom will be here. My in’ laws are awesome and have been asking what the Korean traditions are for postpartum healing. The thing I knew right away to tell them was, seaweed soup (mee-yuk guk)!

With both Gianna and Caleb, my mom made me endless amounts of mee-yuk guk. My aunt even brought it directly to the hospital for me after Caleb was born, it was like comfort in a bowl. By the end of a week or two of eating it meal after meal, I get really sick of it, but to my mom, it’s one of the most important things for my body to be taking in after the intense experience of giving birth. The soup has a ton of minerals from the seaweed, it ensures you’re getting lots of liquids into your body, and it’s warm and soothing.

So, today, in 98 degree weather, I was simmering away ox-tail bones to show my father-in-law how to prepare mee-yuk guk. Earlier this week I also made another riff on the soup using beef, photoed above.

Other Korean postpartum traditions I’ll be trying my best to follow?

Keeping my body warm. My mom and aunt are forever telling me to keep my body warm after having a baby. I have a distinct memory of my aunt telling me to put a sweater on in the hot summer after Caleb was born! They say that you won’t feel the effects now, but years from now when I’m older, a lack of keeping my body warm will make my body really weak. I guess I’ll just have to take their word for it?

The other thing is not picking up anything even remotely heavy for a while. All those organs inside my body are re-situating themselves after getting space back post-baby being in there, and it’s important not to put an extra strain on things. This one will be so hard with Gianna and Caleb I’m sure wanting mama-time after their sister arrives, but I’ll have to be good about letting them crawl into my lap, while I’m sitting down.

Let’s hope that next week I have news of baby to share and not a post about what’s like it’s to be super over-due!