I recently went for my first ultrasound, no waiting for 12 weeks after all!
I was measuring at 10 weeks 3 days which is about two days ahead of what my app Nurture calculated.
They do things a little different here in France and have me another set of measurements which is considered theoretical 11 weeks 4 days. From what I understand they add a week or two from the last menstrual date because predicting when implantation occurred is just not possible unless you did IVF.
So here is baby O at 10w3d.
Naveen was present for the ultrasound so he got to see his little sibling playing in my belly, he was so excited to see it on the big screen and hear the heartbeat.
I’m glad he was there to see if because he wasn’t really believing there was a baby, he kept asking if my belly got bigger.
Healthwise I seem to be having some fluffy weeks with occasional nausea that ranges from not so bad to I can’t move. I notice that the worst nausea always occurs when I’m up and about too much. I tend to take a rest and feel a little better.
I hope these weeks continue to be fluffy because I feel a little more human when I can function.
I’m 7 weeks today, the same amount weeks I was when my life shattered in 2015.
I wanted to wait until I passed this mark before sharing but life always has other plans.
Graphic thanks to Nurture App by Glow.
If you’re interested in the Nurture app you can find it on the Play Store here.
Things are so different now, I have insurance, my French is apparently good enough that I can speak to hospital staff, I am on very strong medication, Largactil which is the last step before hospitalization, and IV drugs.
And yet…
I am filled with doubts and dreading the thoughts of something bad happening, the vivid dreams are not helpful either.
Now more than ever I wish I was home where I’d be surrounded by family and love instead of stuck in my bedroom while my 5-year-old takes care of himself. I worry about him see much and trying to get up to check on him is a fall down the stairs waiting to happen. So many times I’ve gotten dizzy or nauseous and had to sit before I could continue.
I’ve successfully passed 7 weeks!
I’m now 9 weeks and 3 days, I think I can feel my uterus starting to peek out from behind my pelvic bone. Nothing big just that little feeling of firmness.
Soon my little baby will start looking like a baby and I’ll have my first ultrasound, I can’t wait for that, the days seem to drag but at least I have something to look forward to.
I forgot all about this beauty they were coming my way, since I’ve been sick I haven’t reviewed much of anything but this will come in pretty handy since my skin is so dry now.
This is a new scent for their Florale Huile Prodigieuse line.
It is 96.9% Natural ingredients.
If you’ve never heard of Nuxe Huile Prodigieuse it is a multi-purpose dry oil for the face, body, and hair.
It’s official, I’ve been stuck on bed rest since 4w5d and I’m now 6w5d. I’ve passed every hour of every day either throwing up, stuck on a continuous loop of nauseated, or sleeping the sleep of the undead.
Yes, we’re pregnant again and yes I’m suffering once more from Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
I knew better, I knew I would never be able to experience pregnancy like a happy person, I knew I’d be sick every waking hour. I have so many boxes and boxes of medications and I’m still so sick.
My lips are dried and peeling, my skin is dry as is my hair.
This is my third pregnancy dealing with this and I don’t know what I was hoping for but I definitely didn’t find it. I’m so close to the mark where we lost the last one that I just decided to come out with it.
If you’re local to me chances are you will not see me again until after the birth. I can barely climb the stairs in my own home.
I don’t know who you are unborn baby but I’m trying everything I can to meet you.
Today I’m going to talk about one of the most common topics of discussion in the Natural hair community, curl patterns.
To be honest I’ve never given it much thought at all because I have more than one type of pattern of you go by the chart that seems to be everywhere.
This chart right here:
According to this chart, the front of my head is a mix of 2c and 3a, the middle is a mix of 3b and 3c, the very back of my head is 4a. Like I said before I have a lot of curl patterns.
The curl patterns aren’t that important though, it’s the porosity of the hair or so I’ve been told.
My hair is low porosity and coconut oil is supposed to be really good for this type of hair but I can’t use coconut anything or my hair will become very brittle and break horrendously.
Having hair that dislikes Coconut with a passion is kind of difficult, to be honest because so many hair products geared towards Afro hair have it in it. There are so many highly favored cult favorites that I just can not use.
I’ve begun to disregard all the suggestions that have been thrown my way because what works for one person’s hair doesn’t work for everyone, sometimes you just have to find what your hair loves.
My hair loves Argan, Avocado, Rice water, and Jojoba. I know this because I’ve had favorable results with them.
When I shaved my head back in 2017 I honestly didn’t know what kind of curl pattern to expect, when I was youngest my mother used the wrong products, and my true pattern was hidden.
You probably can’t see it well but my hair was like a 2b and almost like a straw broom, to be honest, it’s like when I flat iron my hair and take braids out.
I’m pretty sure that texture was because my mother used this grease on my hair.
My hair doesn’t do well with grease at all, it is very heavy and what that does is that it drags my curls down until all you see is limp greasy strands and washing did nothing because as soon as we were done washing my hair with shampoos and conditioners that stripped my hair she would comb it with a fine-tooth comb and it was painful so painful that I’d run away and hide until my hair was pretty similar to a bird’s nest and then the real pain would come when she tried to de-tangle it while it was dry!
All my life my mother said my hair wasn’t as good as my middle sister’s because I didn’t have curls like her but when she sees my hair now she can’t believe how similar my hair actually is.
My hair is curly and coily but to maintain this it needs the proper care.
I’ve developed my own routine and I baby my hair so that I can look at it and feel a sense of pride. My hair is just as good, my hair is my crown.
Hey guys! Today I’m going to sidestep the emotions lol I got a lot of response from it and frankly, I felt overwhelmed and needed to process. I never really meant for it to cast blame on anyone, I just needed to release something that’s been with me for many years. I’m happy to finally let it all out and now I’m going to talk to you about the new Gel Micellaire Nettoyant I bought recently from Le Petit Marseillais.
In this post, I spoke about how much the scent is similar to the 1 Minute Masque that I recently tested and that this was the first Gel Micellaire that I’ve used. It is pretty different from Eau Micellaire but kind of similar to Milk Make-up removers I’ve used before only in the fact that it’s not a tiny liquid. It was pretty sticky and left my skin feeling a bit heavy almost like I didn’t remove everything. It did work really well and got rid of all the everyday yuck but it’s a bit too heavy for me to use on a daily basis. I think I will leave this for those occasions when I have a full face of makeup on. I haven’t noticed any new breakouts since using this which is always a plus but I’ll be keeping a close eye on my face for the rest of the week.
Today we went shopping at Carrefour, I really wanted to get some of those press-on nails that they had and see what hair supplies were available but I only accomplished one of those goals.
There were no press on nails to be found anywhere! But I did manage to get the entire line of Garnier Ultra Doux Richesse D’Argan as well as some other things.
Since my move here this line has been my holy staple and it is very hard to get my hands on all the products when I need them. They fly off the shelves so fast!
I also picked up Garnier Ultra Doux L’huile Merveilleuse aux huiles d’argan et de camélia which is also another one of my favorites, if I’m not using abierto one of Garnier’s oils. You can probably tell I adore Garnier’s products. What can I say? They work really well for my hair and they are inexpensive.
My last purchase was a Gel Micellaire Nettoyant from Le Petit Marseillais.
Gel Micellaire Nettoyant Fraîcheur de Rose
I’ve used Eau Micellaire from Cien which I’ve spoken about here and Eau Micellaire from U which I’ve also briefly spoken about here. This is my first time using a Gel Micellaire and I’m really interested in seeing what the difference is. The scent is the same as the 1 Minute Masque of theirs that I recently used and spoke about here.
All in all, it was a pretty good haul and didn’t cost that much money.
If you’re lucky you can find all these products at your local Carrefour and you don’t have a Carrefour in your location then you might be able to find one of two items at a Super U, Lidl, Netto, or other supermarché. You can also try looking on Amazon, I can’t guarantee that the price will be pocket-friendly though.
I think it was two weeks ago I ordered my phone and these past weeks were torture, I am not the most patient person and I really wanted to be able to talk to my family without cutting the conversation short to charge my phone. I would just sit and wait and wait for some kind of answer as to just when exactly I would receive my phone. Like a week after I ordered it, or rather my husband ordered it for me 😊 he told me I would get it the next week. The next week came and I was still phone less the date was changed to the next week!
So the week it was supposed to be delivered we got the paper in the mailbox to pick it up at the post office hooray!! My husband went to the post office pretty much straight from work and they were closed! It was soul-crushing because I had been there earlier in the day with my son on a class trip. We’d have to get it the next day and finally on Saturday I got my Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 in my hands and it was beautiful.
Neptune Blue
I bought the 32GB model in Neptune Blue, first of all, let me just say that purple is my favorite color and as soon as I saw that purple I knew this was the phone I would go with. The phone is very responsive but you have to remember that my last phone was 5 years old so my new phone is probably not that fast but compared to the old one it was lightning to me. It charges fast and I don’t have to be attached to my charging cable just to make a phone call, I haven’t actually made a call with my phone yet, I just don’t have anyone who calls me other than my parents and they haven’t called yet so I can’t talk about the quality of a call. I really like the fingerprint scanner, my old phone Huawei P8 Lite 2015 didn’t have one so this is like fancy stuff for me, I also have my usual pattern code and tap to wake. I really like tap to wake when I’m doing something and get distracted for a bit and want to go back to doing what I was originally doing on my phone.
Oh and my most favorite aspect! I found this gem when looking for a way to block a phone number, I get A LOT of calls from unknown numbers and they annoy the hell out of me so this is heaven-sent!
I don’t know why this isn’t standard procedure, if you want to call me you should text me first so I can know who you are, I treasure my private life and my phone number is part of my private life.
I haven’t really gotten to play with the camera too much, I’ve been sick and only to the school to drop my son and back, feels like I’ve been inside for a month, to be honest.
This was the first photo I took with my phone, I didn’t know there would be a watermark until after I took the picture.
If you want to remove the Watermark it’s as simple as going into your Camera Settings and finding the option that says Dual camera watermark. I’m looking forward to going out and finding things to take a picture of, I miss being excited to take out my phone or camera and hope that I can find that passion again.
In case you were wondering, you can find the specs of my phone here at GSMARENA.
It really is a great phone and if you’re thinking of getting one for yourself it’s not too expensive at 199,99€. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you’re on a budget like myself if you’re looking for something with a little more storage I heard there was a 64 GB version but it’s not Globally available as yet.
Alright, then my lovelies, time for me to discover even new features hidden in my phone!
So today I finally gave my Dry Shampoo a chance to do its stuff. I had my hair in twists all week and didn’t wash anything and over the weekend I was ill so no wash day still. I decided to try out my Bamboo and White Grape Dry Shampoo from U that I recently picked up in Super U which I spoke about here. I’ll do a little review for you to see if it’s something you might think about adding to your wash day routine.
This Dry Shampoo is for Tous types de cheveux which is French for All hair types. I didn’t want to pick up the others because I wasn’t sure how it would interact with my hair. This one just settled the safest bet.
So I’m just going to translate the most important parts of the instructions:
Use on dry hair. Shake well before use. Keep the can at a vertical position of 15 cm from the hair and spray at the roots. Leave it alone for 2 minutes before rubbing in the powder residue.
When I first sprayed this it was a pretty strong scent but it quickly faded to a much more pleasing scent. I could definitely feel the alcohol interacting with my scalp, not in a burning way but just to let me know that it was present. There was no white residue left behind after running it in.
So far my scalp is tingly and smells wonderful but will it do anything for my hair?
I guess tomorrow we’ll see. I’ll be sure to update this post with how my hair turned out after a night with the dry shampoo.
As promised I’m updating this post to include what my hair looked like after using the dry shampoo.
To be honest, I really shouldn’t have used the dry shampoo at this point in time because of the build-up of gel in my hair but it wasn’t too bad just not really effective at doing much of anything. My hair ended up pulled back in a puff after all.
The most I can say is that you can’t see the build-up which somehow the dry shampoo masked a little?
I promised myself that I was going to do a wash day on Wednesday when I don’t have anywhere to go and finally use this new product that I bought a few weeks ago. I’ll probably give you a little review of it later this week.
As you guys may or may not know I shaved off all my relaxed hair two years ago and let my natural hair grow in. Let me tell you it was quite an adventure.
While I enjoy my hair in its natural state I wash my hair quite often and it’s getting expensive continuously buying Shampoo, Conditioner, Deep Conditioner, and Leave-in Conditioner. Hair oil can last me a few months so there’s no problem on that front.
I keep seeing reviews of Dry Shampoo and some of them have not gotten very good reviews from other women of color. The one that did have good reviews was the DevaCurl No-Poo Original Zero Lather Conditioning Cream it’s not exactly a Dry Shampoo but it seems the Quick Cleanser is no longer available. This poses a problem for me because of 1. DevaCurl not shipping to France and 2. Buying it on the French Amazon is expensive as hell DevaCurl No-Poo-Cleanser. On the DevaCurl website, the cleanser is just $10, and Amazon.fr it is 38,00€ which is a $32.97 increase. I understand importing can be expensive but $32.97?!
With DevaCurl out of the running I turned to Dry Shampoos that would be readily available in the stores around me, they include the likes of Batiste, Garnier Ultra Doux, and U by Super U.
Yes, I live in a very small town and our offerings are very limited!
I was not going to pick up any Batiste because of all the reviews I’ve seen where it does nothing but makes natural hair greasy and leaves a white residue. That left me with Garnier Ultra Doux and U by Super U, I’m well acquainted with the brands having used Shampoo, Conditioner, Leave-in Conditioner, and Deep conditioner from both the Ultra Doux line and U by Super U, I’ve also used hair oil, Micellaire water, and facial moisturizers by U.
With this in mind, I think I will buy both the Garnier Ultra Doux Dry Shampoo and the U by Super U to test out which one I like better.
What about you? Do you have a brand of Dry Shampoo that you like?
Crucianize 