Bumpdate Week 33

I had my 32 week appointment on Friday and our little girl is still Frank Breech! The above picture shows you the position she's in. I need to get her to turn her booty around or a C-section is in my future. With my last appointment, we found that she's in this position, but I wasn't too worried about it- I thought she would turn and we'd call it a day. Now that she's still in this position, I'm beginning to slightly freak out.

I'm not afraid of having a C-section, I trust my doctor fully and want what's best for our baby to be born healthy, but I'd rather have a vaginal birth than C-section. I also wrote that last sentence before I Googled C-sections and now I'm kind of nervous to have one. There's definitely pros and cons to both ways of delivery, but overall and most importantly I want to deliver a healthy baby.

On my Facebook page I asked mommies if they had any tips in getting their little ones to turn and was told about acupuncture (which my big sis said too), stretches, using tones in the direction we want the baby to move, and using a cold pack where the baby's head is so they turn away from it. I've been doing exercises everyday to help her turn and I've been praying about it. One night we were able to get her to turn horizontally using all of the above techniques, but she wouldn't turn any further and turned back breech about 20 minutes later. I can tell when she's in the breech position because of where her head is and the shape of my belly and when she turned it completely changed, but now she's definitely back in the Frank Breech positioning again.

I'm open to all suggestions so please comment below! Also, have you had a C-section? What was your experience?

Matt and I had a Baby Basics class on Tuesday. The class was really useful, we learned signs of illness, what to expect in the dirty diapers (with photos- yay), how to swaddle, bath, and take a temperature. 

We start our Lamaze class tomorrow for the next month and I'm really looking forward to the class- although if I have a C-section these classes are unnecessary and my Dr advised I won't need to take them.

How far along?  32 weeks (Each bumpdate reviews the week previous)

Total weight gain: 15.6lbs! I knew my guess last week was right! I've finally start to gain some weight and my Dr is so happy, although he did mention it's STILL not enough, and we went over my diet again (which he said is fine and healthy).

Stretch marks?: Besides Stretch Mark Gate (read about it here  in Week 28) I haven't had any more pop up and the few I have on the underside of my chest have not grown or gotten worse.  I've started using Body Spa Cell.U.Lift Firming Body Lotion every morning after my shower and starting using the  Burt's Bees Mama Bee Belly Butter each night before bed (when I remember). The Body Spa Cell.U.Lift is amazing, it makes your skin all tingly and I love the minty scent. I've started putting it on some marks I have on my hips from a childhood growth spurt- I'll definitely do a review. 

Maternity clothes: Same as the last few weeks, wearing my regular clothes, but each week my closet is growing smaller and smaller. I just don't want to buy any tops that I'll be wearing for less than 2 months. So yes, you'll see any pictures of me in the same outfits on repeat.

I'm still wearing my Old Navy Maternity Smooth-Panel Rockstar Jeggings  (I bought two pairs) and my Kiki La'Rue Jeggings (which aren't maternity, but fit below my belly).  I love these pants, they're all I wear at this point in the game.

This week I made some pearl bracelets for the baby. I couldn't find infant size anywhere and wanted one to bring her home in. I also made a larger one for my niece so we can start the matching outfits early!

Belly Button in or out?: Half and half right now, the top has been out for a while but I had a huge growth spurt Thursday night and my belly button is halfway out now. It looks so weird! I don’t think it will be out that far, but you never know.

Sleep: I'm waking up only once a night and there have been two nights I was able to sleep right through without waking. I'm still hot close to morning and my hips have some pain. On Monday I was just uncomfortable overall and felt like everything hurt when I awoke. I picked up some Tylenol but haven't had to use it yet.

Best moment this week: Seeing baby in the sonogram at our appointment and starting the baby classes! I can't wait to hold her. Her arrival is getting so close!!

Worst moment this week: The moment I decided it would be a good idea to Google C-sections. 

The lace bloomers I ordered on Groopdealz forever ago finally came in! I can't wait to put her little rump in them, they're so frilly! 

Have you told family and friends: Yes!

Miss Anything? Sleeping comfortably.  

Movement: Tons! Her movements are so large and she moves so often I don't need to count her kicks (thankfully). Hopefully, she shimmy's her way to face head down. 

I bought this cute makeup bag for the diaper bag from Groopdealz (buy here). I ordered option 4 with her initial. It doesn't match the diaper bag whatsoever, but I loved the print. I thought it would be good to keep liquids contained in a chic way.

Food cravings: Pineapple juice, milk, popcorn with Tapatio, and strawberries. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing.

Have you started to show yet: Absolutely!

Gender: Team pink!

I also ordered two headbands from this Groopdealz (order here) 

Symptoms:Tiredness, minor hip pain, and dry skin.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy, happy, happy!

Looking forward to: Seeing our maternity photos, my second baby shower, and hanging decoration in the nursery. 

My Firsts

When Carolyn posted this last week on life, love & puppy prints, I had to copy it. I thought it was so cute and I love fun posts like this where you can learn some fun facts about someone. 

FIRST thing I do in the morning... see what I can cut out of my routine to lay in bed another 10 minutes, check my email, InstaGram, and Facebook. Then I use the restroom and turn on the water for my shower.

FIRST thing I do when I get home from work... get into my pjs!

My FIRST kiss... my first real kiss was to a middle school bf and my first actual kiss was playing a game of suck and blow in the basement at a party (both kisses happened in 8th grade). 

My FIRST home... was in South Jordan, Utah and I still Google map it every now and then to check it out.

My FIRST car... was a tank! I had a white Pontiac Bonneville that broke down all the time, the passenger window didn't work, my a/c and heater didn't work, and sometimes my rearview mirror fell off in the heat. I couldn't wait to get a nicer one.

My FIRST accident traffic violation... was on the freeway in a bit of rain on my way to a college class. I'm freaking out and of course none of my family answered their phones.

The FIRST thing I wanted to be when I grew up... was a chemist. I didn't have many friends as a child and was a total nerd. I also really wanted to be a mother and stay at home with my kids, a dream I've never ditched.

FIRST drink of choice... Sprite, then root beer (but not Barq's because of the caffeine), then lemonade.

FIRST dessert of choice... anything with apple or banana. So tarts, pie, ice cream, I'm in!

FIRST choice restaurant... Outback! It's my favorite place and where the hubs and I met. There's so many things on their menu I love and it's the first place we're eating after our little bunny arrives. I'm dying for a rare filet and their wedge salad with extra blue cheese.

FIRST song that comes to mind... Britney Spear's Scream and Shout, I can't get enough of this jam!

FIRST major purchase... my Honda CR-V! I felt like I needed to send a note to everyone saying "I have arrived". It was so exciting and I love my car.

FIRST job... working at Wet Seal at the mall. The job sucked, but I loved the discount. I used to lock my knees in the hopes that I would faint and could go home.

FIRST time I flew... As an infant, my mother worked for the airlines and we flew back to CA when we lived in UT all the time to visit her family.

FIRST "big girl" job... working for an insurance agent.

What are some of your firsts? 

Product Review: e.l.f. Studio Cream Eyeliner and Studio Angled Eyeliner Brush

e.l.f. Studio Cream Eyeliner and Studio Angled Eyeliner Brush

  
After reading how awesome this liner is on a million blogs, I finally gave in and picked it up on a Target run. I’ve been using a liquid liner since junior high and have been completely loyal to my Maybelline Line Stiletto for years. However, I’ve noticed that it randomly started to disappear on me, it rubs off, the slightest sign of a watery eye and my liner is nowhere to be seen. I just can’t have that! I mean, who wants to walk around looking all skiwompy with funky eyeliner? Not me.

Now some time ago, I tried the Maybelline Gel Liner (see my review here) and just didn’t care for it. That’s part of the reason I held out on trying this e.l.f. liner for so long. Now, I understand there’s a difference between gel and cream (how it’s different, I’m not sure, but I know there’s a difference. Ha ha), but the Maybelline liner did not work at all for me. I didn’t care for it in any way, it smeared easily, was hard to apply, and took too long to dry. Also, e.l.f. has been hit and miss for me. Some products are amazing and others are worthless. I like their blushes, mascara, and studio brushes, but some of the other products I’ve tried I’ve ended up throwing away.

Look how dark that liner is! Hello gorgeous! 

(This was for a night out, that's why it's a bit thicker)

Can I please tell you how much this e.l.f. liner has changed my life? I’m in LOVE with it! It’s seriously the best thing I’ve ever used and I wish I tried it out years ago so I could have had amazing liner this whole time instead of the sasquatch look I’ve been sporting. The liner is creamy, easy to apply for your desired look, a little goes a long way, and is very dark. I bought it in black and it’s like Whoa Nelly, it really makes your eyes pop. I want to also get a brown-black or brown color as well for a more natural look sometimes. The liner dries pretty quickly- almost instantly really, doesn’t smudge (even when scratching/rubbing your eyes), and holds on to dear life through any tears or water. A few weeks ago I had a preggo breakdown and cried my eyes out, but my liner looked bomb. There was no sign of tears in my liner! Another thing I like is that even when wearing eyeshadow, the liner is still dark. It doesn’t lighten up or appear to change colors if my shadow gets on top of it. The only thing I can say negatively about the liner is that it’s hard to get off. I use my Neutrogena Naturals Fresh Cleansing + Makeup Remover or my Ormedic Balancing Facial Cleanser and there’s still a bit of residue left after that I need a q-tip to clean up (and even then, it’s not completely off I feel like).

To apply the liner, I bought the e.l.f. Studio Angled Eyeliner Brush, I don’t trust any brushes that come with products and haven’t even given the original brush a chance so I can’t tell you how it works. Plus it’s really small so I just didn’t bother and bought the angled brush at the same time. I was kind of intimidated about the slant at the end of the brush, but for $3 why not try it? I like that the tip is so slender, it gives you a lot of control in the thickness of the liner and you're able to get really close to your lash liner and between your lashes. I also really like the slant, it makes it easy to use any side and any angle to apply the liner. It’s also makes it easy to use with both my left and right hand. Every day I just wipe off any residue onto a towel or makeup remover wipe (if I’m already using one to clean up shadow residue) and it dries right away without getting stiff or gross.

So here is another thing I'm insisting that you run and buy, you won't regret it!

What liner do you swear by? Have you tried this gem yet?

Book Review: A Piece of Cake

As an avid reader, I'm always on the lookout for the next good read. A book that captures your attentions from the beginning and keeps it throughout the chapters. This book took me through a roller coaster of emotions; sadness, pity, disgust, and even gave me nightmares. It's such a good read, I had to share it because I know so many of you are also big readers. I haven't done that many reviews, especially with the amount of books I read, so I figured I'd start with a great one that wasn't about pregnancy or parenting. Thanks again Tiff for letting me borrow it, I knew I could count on you for the best book suggestions!

**Warning** Some of you may think this review contains spoilers, I on the other hand don't think it does since the back of the cover and the description itself tells how it will end (happy). If that doesn't give it away, you can use cognitive reasons to deduce it yourself. Kind of like how you know people will die during The Hunger Games since it's a battle to the end. Keep reading if you choose, or come back tomorrow for a new post.

Good Reads Description: 
There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness.

Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty.

And that’s when things got interesting….

You have in your hands the strange, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating tale of a woman named Cupcake. It begins as the story of a girl orphaned twice over, once by the death of her mother and then again by a child welfare system that separated her from her stepfather and put her into the hands of an epically sadistic foster parent. But there comes a point in her preteen years—maybe it’s the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once—when Cupcake’s story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark comic blues opera. As Cupcake’s troubles grow, so do her voice and spirit. Her gut-punch sense of humor and eye for the absurd, along with her outsized will, carry her through a fateful series of events that could easily have left her dead.

Young Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, partying like a rock star, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. But Cupcake’s unlikely tour through the cubicle world was paralleled by a quickening descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine use, till she eventually found herself living behind a Dumpster.

Astonishingly, she turned it around. With the help of a cobbled together family of eccentric fellow addicts and “angels”—a series of friends and strangers who came to her aid at pivotal moments—she slowly transformed her life from the inside out.

A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contemporary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination. Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original storyteller who will guide you on the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.

My Review:

I haven’t read a book this good in a long, long time. The book is really heart-wrenching and it’s incredible what she survived. The book is really visual and I love how she tells her story, but I also appreciate that she left out gory details of the ugly parts of her life (like specifics about rapes and prostituting). It’s really a wonderful telling of a true success story, you find yourself rooting and crying with her every step of the way. When talking about the book with my friend whom I borrowed it from, we kept repeating about how we could never have survived what she went through and would have thrown in the towel instead of pushing on. The amount of trials she faced throughout her life, but especially as a child, are horrific.

As for her addictions, seeing her rationalize her drug/alcohol abuse really helped me to understand addiction so much better. I’ve known several addicts in my life and couldn’t understand their thinking and knew it was their disease, but didn’t realize how their rationalizations keep them from admitting they have a problem, regardless of how bad things get. Reading how Cupcake acts, thinks, and believes while she’s using and seeing her journey through rehabilitation is really eye-opening. Here are some examples that really stood out to me “If I can hold down a job, I must not have a problem. Dope fiends can’t keep a job” or “If I give up ___, I can’t be a dope fiend (even though all other drugs/alcohol are still being used, just taking out one of them seems okay)”.

This book is so unreal and such an amazing story of her struggles in life, but leaves your broken heart for her mostly healed. It truly is a success story of one I’ve never read of before. This book is unlike any other book I’ve read before (you can’t even begin to compare it with A Million Little Pieces by James Frey). I relished in reading about her recovery, the friends she made, how her thinking changed, and how she had to re-teach herself to become the woman she wanted to be. She kept pushing on and on to achieve her dreams: to be sober and become a lawyer.

I read some other reviews of the book, and found that some people didn’t like how she “glorified” her drug use/gang days, her “superior” intelligence of scamming others and securing job after job despite obvious resume exaggerations and poor work ethic. After reading some of these details, I have to disagree. I think she wrote about that time in her life as how she felt at that age and time. If you’re a 20 year old drug user and you can do more drugs or drink more than your other user friends, I can see how you would think that would give you bragging rights or make you the baddest of the bunch. As for the “superior” intelligence, if you have ever known an addict, they can be very dynamic. It takes a lot of creativity, scamming, and manipulation to stay high. Since she kept pulling one over on victims, I understand how she believes she’s outsmarted society and can keep her lifestyle going. Plus, the majority of people want to believe that a person is telling the truth, so when someone keeps lying about something, even if you don’t believe what they’re saying, you want to. The only negative review piece that I can agree with is how believable all the details are since Cupcake was constantly high and drunk. It would definitely be hard to remember everything when you’re not in the right state of mind. At the same time though, I think her book really goes over the parts she remembers best, there are lots of details left out (like descriptions of her “business partners”, details of the rapes and molestation) and I think that’s because she didn’t remember everything (and didn’t want to share the really bad parts). I don’t want to give the impression that there are holes in the storyline though, it really flows throughout the years.

Overall, this book is a must-read. Just don’t read it before bedtime or you may get nightmares! Have you read this book or have read any must-reads you have to share?

Hot Man Parade

How come when I dream about episodes from Criminal Minds they're all nightmares and don't include a shirtless Shemar Moore? To my Subconscious, we need to work on this.