New things to try - Mustela

Ever heard of this brand? Me neither until about 1-2 weeks ago.  I was contacted by a lovely PR to see if I'd like to review some of the products, namely their stretch mark care oil.

Given that I've broken out with some stretch marks around my belly button (the narrowest part of my inflated waist) I thought this would make a good test.  I've taken 'before' pics but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to share them just yet, we'll wait and see :)

I used the stretch mark care oil for the first time today, it's a thick oily consistency that blends in and absorbs really well, it smells lovely too :)

As well as the stretch mark oil, they also sent me some nursing comfort balm which is safe to use while breastfeeding (and it's paraben, phthalate and phenoxyethanol free).  Simply apply it to the nipple area after breastfeeding and it is supposed to help to soothe the area.  Obviously, I won't be able to trial this for a while as the baby isn't due for a good few weeks yet.

They also sent a small tube of double action stretch mark cream, for those dark and sore marks.  And a little tube of nappy cream (change cream) to help prevent and repair nappy rash.

I'll let you know how I get on with these as and when I try them - first to report back will probably be the stretch mark care oil :)


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33 Week pregnancy update

Top to bottom, L-R: My lip product stash I found while clearing out some old bags, my mani from Saturday (Nails Inc Motcomb St with Max Factor fantasy fire over the top), some lovely goodies for the blog that the postman crushed when pushing through the door, some reduced goods from our Aldi shop

MY WEEK
It's been a pretty good week.  I had an antenatal appointment on Tuesday, or at least so I thought I did. I was told I'd be having growth scans every other week, but when I turned up they only wanted me to see the diabetic nurse, so ended up being a quick appointment.  They weren't overly happy with my blood sugar results and I need to go back tomorrow as they're probably going to put me on Metformin to help control my levels, as they seem to be going high when they shouldn't.

It's also been a really emotional week, it was the anniversary of my mum passing away, and it was more difficult this year as I also lost my brother earlier in the year.  Then during a regular meeting at work, I discovered the girl I was having the meeting with knew my brother too - all very emotional.

On a more positive note, we've been busy starting to get the nursery sorted, clearing out furniture from the room - it's still full of stuff but we're getting through it.  I'm feeling a real sense of urgency to get it done now.  Over the next week I need to start collecting bits for my hospital bag and start getting that ready too.  So much to do/think of!

SYMPTOMS
Very tired all the time and I get very tired from doing very little.  The baby has been having a right wriggle this week too, which is lovely :)  I've had a pretty achy lower back too and I've been needing lots of visits to the bathroom - I think Squidge is dancing on my bladder :)

SLEEP
Still not sleeping very well, I managed to have 1 good night sleep on Friday night  - I slept from 10:30 through to 4am, had to get up for a bathroom visit, then slept until about 7am.  But yeah, now when I feel like I should be getting as much sleep as possible, I'm finding it really hard to get much sleep.

DIET & WEIGHT
I've lost another 1lb, I'm now 8-9lbs lighter than before I got pregnant, crazy eh!  My diet feels really limited at the moment (vegetarian & diabetic) and I feel like I'm eating the same stuff every day, which I am.  I'm just counting down those days until I can eat normal food again, like a poached egg with a runny yolk, mmmmm.

NEXT APPOINTMENT
Tomorrow, just seeing the diabetes nurse and will most likely be put on Metformin.

BABY STUFF
The only new things we bought were the three things in the picture from Aldi - all came in under £5.

This past week I've written about the little (food) bits I'm looking forward to having once the baby is born, our experiment in shopping at Aldi & Lidl and my wonderful baby shower.


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It's the small things

With the pregnancy and gestational diabetes, there's quite a few things I've had to cut out of my diet, most I've adjusted to just fine, but there's still a few treats I can't wait to be able to have again (assuming the diabetes goes when the baby is born).

A runny poached egg
Something I love in this world is a good poached egg on toast or a bagel.  Simple flavours, but if it's a good egg and cooked well, you don't get much better.

A bag of chips
Since being diabetic this is a bit of a no no.  I can still have potatoes but they really need to have a skin on for the extra fibre (new potatoes are perfect), and generally accompanied by some veg and no-carb loaded food.  I really love a good bag of chips with salt and vinegar, again, it's the simple foods I'm missing the most.

White rice
Brown rice can be ok, but it needs the hell cooked out of it, and even then, it's just not the same as well cooked basmati rice.  I used to cook a really nice meal - a vegetable biryani - with korma paste, quorn pieces fried in some of that sauce, basmati rice, fresh coriander, sliced almonds and sultanas - it's just a no-no for now since it's full of sugary carbs, but it's one of my favourite meals and so tasty.

Cake & baking
While I don't eat a lot of cake, I do miss baking and being able to sample my creations.  One of my favourite things to cook is a Jamie Oliver recipe of chunky shortbread.  Something I have to avoid while diabetic, yeah I could substitute the sugar for sweetener, but that's not ideal and it just wouldn't taste the same.  I also really miss a good slice of good carrot cake, one of my all time favourites.

Did you know I've started doing pregnancy vlogs on YouTube too?  I've had a channel longer than I've been blogging (nearly 3 years now), why not check it out?

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The Supermarket test

The hubby and I shop at Waitrose every week.  It's a little known secret that if you shop at Waitrose online, they're surprisingly cheap as they price match Tesco for brand goods, and on their own brand goods they often have 10% off to My Waitrose customers (it's a card that is free to get, and if you pop in to Waitrose, gets you a free tea or coffee every day).

Knowing that money will be very tight once the baby comes, we're exploring shopping at other stores, so this week we tried Aldi - now, it's not just about money, but it is about quality too.  Next week we're trying Lidl.  The food shop was a bit hit and miss, there were quite a few things (9) that we weren't able to get at Aldi like soya milk and quorn goods which we ended up picking up at Sainsburys, coming to around £25, making the total weekly shop just over £50 - only a £10 saving on Waitrose.

The difference was in the quality.  The fruit I bought from Aldi didn't have expiration dates on, and even though they were refrigerated, they went mouldy within a couple of days - Waitrose fruit on the other hand tends to last a good week or so in the fridge.

Because of my gestational diabetes, one of the breakfasts I've been having most days is fresh fruit with greek yoghurt, and if I can't get fruit that will last at least a few days, it's no good to me.  The biggest winner from Aldi were the new potatoes.  In Waitrose I pay £1.99 for a bag (500g), in Aldi for a bigger bag (750g) it was only 49p and they tasted great, but do we want to have to shop in 3 different places each week to do a complete shop? No.

We did pick up lots of other bits when we were there though, like the baby bits in the pic above - these are left overs from the last Aldi baby event, which was a few months ago.  They were reduced to silly prices, like the bowls being £1.19 for 3, the blanket was just over £1 and the muslin cloths were similar.

For now, as great as some of the things were in Aldi, the quality just wasn't right (like the fruit, and their equivalent of quavers - not great) and there was just too much we weren't able to get there, so we'll see how Lidl fairs next week.


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My babyshower

As promised, here's my post about my babyshower which happened last week.  So, it started a couple months ago when I had a text from my friend saying she was going to start organising it, who I'd like to attend and their phone numbers.  Other than getting a date nailed, this was pretty much the last I heard about it :)

On the night, my friends turned up at the house to blindfold me and drive me to the secret venue.  After 20 mins of driving around (and feeling a little sick, lol) we rocked up at my mother-in-laws house (which was 10 mins away) :)  For me, this was perfect, they have a lovely house which I'm really comfortable in, so this was perfect.

After I arrived, the father-in-law headed over to surprise my hubby by taking him out for a meal :)

I walked in to find a vintage tea party with bunting everywhere, it was so pretty.

My mother-in-law was amazing, she hired in some vintage crockery (all proceeds go to a local charity) and made food to suit my vegetarian/diabetic diet.  My friend who'd organised the shower had also had made a carrot cake, where the top tier was sugar-free :)  So thoughtful :)

After we'd eaten and consumed a lot of tea, it was time to open some presents, I was quite overwhelmed with just how generous everyone had been.  Here's a few snaps of the gifts :)

All in all it was a lovely evening, one I'll certainly never forget.  Thank you to everyone who helped organise, it was such a special evening and everyone who was there made it all the more special.


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32 week pregnancy update

1.  Our moses basket arrived - it's the Olive and Henri one from Toys R Us, kindly bought by Squidge's grandparents

2.  Look out for Wednesday's baby shower post :)

3.  My favourite diabetic friendly breakfast

4.  Car trouble - well, not really, but the battery did go and we had to buy a new one, bye bye the best part of £100!

MY WEEK
Well, it's been a pretty wonderful week.  On Wednesday it was my baby shower, I'll be writing up a whole blog post about that which will go live this Wednesday.  We had another couple of hours spent at the maternity assessment unit because Squidge was being quiet, he was still moving around, just less than normal.  That was followed up with a scan the next day to check my amniotic fluid levels, they'd dropped a tiny bit from the last scan, but it was still a good level, considering the baby is growing.  The big bonus to that scan is we had the nicest scan pic we've seen - you can really see Squidge's profile :)

I've also done my last 5 day week at work (whoop!), only 6 weeks to go until I'm on maternity leave and I can't wait.  I'm finding working getting harder and harder now, I get very tired very quickly so the sooner I can finish work the better.

SYMPTOMS
I've had a pretty achy lower back this week on and off, and every night when I go to bed the heartburn returns, at least when I sleep on my right side.  One evening I also had period-like cramps for about half an hour, they were pretty uncomfortable - I've read up that it's likely to be the baby moving down in the uterus - I hope not though as he's breech still!

SLEEP
It's getting worse - the last few nights I've been having a terrible nights sleep, very interrupted, tossing and turning a lot and just lying in bed awake for what feels like hours, as well as being really achy.

DIET & WEIGHT
I didn't weigh myself this weekend, so we'll have to see next weekend how my weight is :)  My diet is good, although I have discovered this week that bran flakes and weetabix really don't mix with my diabetes, so I'll be avoiding them from now on.  I'm loving having strawberries, blueberries and kiwi's for breakfast with greek yoghurt and a touch of truvia sweetener.

NEXT APPOINTMENT
Tomorrow! I have a big antenatal appointment tomorrow where I'll have a growth scan, see my consultant, the medics and maybe the diabetes nurse - it's safe to say I'll be there for a good 4 hours, I'm going to try and remember to bring a book with me this time (the 2nd Harry Potter book - yes, I'm reading them for the first time at the age of 35 :P)

BABY STUFF
Well, as you can imagine, with a baby shower there's been quite an influx of baby stuff this week :P It's all at the in-laws so I'm not able to photograph it, but I do have some nice pics of the evening which I'll be putting into Wednesday's post.


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31 week pregnancy update

Left: My first proper bump pic taken at 30 weeks & 2 days :)

Top Right: Matilda looking for the cable tie she was playing with

Bottom right: A knitting magazine I bought for my mother-in-law that has a pattern and materials with it to knit a red squirrel :)

MY WEEK
It's been a really good week :)  I had an antenatal appointment on Tuesday that went really well.  The baby is growing well, his head and legs are still measuring 2 weeks ahead (long legs like his Daddy) and his abdomen is spot on (which is the most important).  They also measured my amniotic fluid and it's gone up again, whoop!  It's now 13.something up from 8 then 10, so in normal ranges now, which is great.  I also saw the diabetic nurses who are really happy with how I'm controlling it with my diet which is great - a really great appointment :)  And as an added bonus, we were done there about 2 hours quicker than normal, which was fab.

SYMPTOMS
The heartburn has been getting me this week, and I've been pretty uncomfortable.  I think Squidge has been in some funny positions.  I've been getting pretty tired too, when it gets to about 10:30 at night, I all of a sudden get completely sleepy and need bed asap, and it's really hard getting out of bed in the morning as I'm so tired.  I think here is where things start getting harder...

SLEEP
I'm definitely more tired and get tired a lot more easily, it's hard work growing a baby :)  I'm waking up a lot in the night with really achy sides too, I'm not sure if that's just the pregnancy or the dying 10-year old mattress.

DIET & WEIGHT
At my appointment on Tues I'd noticed they'd recorded another weight loss - and weighing myself yesterday, I've now lost half a stone on my pre-pregnancy weight.  So not only have I negated the gains I should see from carrying a baby, but I'm getting lighter all the time.  I think the diabetic diet has a lot to do with that, and the fact I've had a reduced appetite since getting pregnant.  It'll be interesting to see after the baby is born how much weight I'll have actually lost :)

BUMP
Growing all the time, getting bigger and bigger as the weeks roll on - just have a look at the pic :)

NEXT APPOINTMENT
Tuesday 12th August - seeing the midwife for my 31 week appointment.

BABY STUFF
Not bought anything new this week, we moved all the baby stuff to hubby's parents house so we have room to start sorting the spare room.  What I'm looking forward to most this week though is my surprise baby shower :)  It's on Wednesday, all I know is that I'm being picked up at 6:30 and I don't know anything about what will happen, all very exciting :)


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Funky Giraffe Bib giveaway

So today I bring you a first for Mummy-Pixie, a giveaway!  I was approached by the lovely people at Funky Giraffe Bibs to offer all you lovelies the chance to win 3 of their bibs, whichever ones you like, how fab!

If you're not familiar with Funky Giraffe they have a lovely range of bibs in colours, patterns, sizes and shapes - some especially cute ones for girls :)  You can have a peek at their range here.

All you need to do is follow my blog on Bloglovin' - and follow them on Twitter and Facebook. There's other options you can do for extra points, but they're not compulsory.  The giveaway will run for 2 weeks, I'll notify the winner by email and if the prize isn't claimed in 72 hrs, I'll pick another winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck to you all :D

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Dummy or no dummy

Whether you decide to give to give your child a dummy is a very personal decision.  It is something that's been ingrained in me since I was very young.

My mother didn't believe in them, she always said it was 'the lazy way out' and that's the only attitude I'd ever really known.  Now I'm about to have my own child, it's a discussion that the hubby and I have had.

I can appreciate the arguments for it - it helps to soothe the child and keep your sanity in check to help with the crazy screaming episodes.  On the other side people argue that they kick off bad habits, and that it's a way to ignore that your baby needs your attention.

Now, I'm somewhere in the middle of that.  I don't intend to use a dummy on Squidge, but who knows, maybe a few weeks/months in I'll change my mind and buy a load of them, but for now it's not something I want to do, I want to at least give it a try/chance without them and hope we can cope.

What did you do or what do you plan to do?


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30 week pregnancy update

1. The first changing mat we've bought for Squidge

2. Poppet (Step-Dad's cat) on hubby's lap - she literally stayed there for hours

3. An epic salad the hubby made me, he's a keeper :)

4. Matilda looking cute on the stairs

MY WEEK
It's not been a bad week, although I've been quite stressed out at work, there's just a lot on at the moment.  Tuesday I had an appointment with the diabetic nurse at the antenatal clinic, there was me thinking it would be a quick check and back out but nope, I had a surprise scan and I met with the consultant too.  The good news was that the fluid that was low around Squidge has increased, it's still not high enough, but it's gone from about 8.3 to 10.4 (should be between 15-25) which is great, at least it's in the right direction :)

My blood sugars have been pretty stable this week, the only times they went high were after eating something that had too much carbs.  I'm going to try and walk more this week if I can, maybe around the lake on the way home a couple times a week, it should help my body control my blood sugars better.

I also had my whooping cough jab this week (Weds) and my arm still hurts!  It's funny, I really hate having blood taken since they always have to take it from the back of my hand (I had the worst veins) but I'd rather have that done than have a jab :/

SYMPTOMS
Big heartburn this week after eating marmite, sad face.  Also, after sleeping on an orthopedic bed at the weekend, I've been very achy and not sleeping very well.  I've been pretty tired (nothing new there) and get tired very easily at doing very little, that's pretty typical though :)

SLEEP
Since this seems to be a big part of most pregnancies I thought I'd start including this in my weekly updates.  As I mentioned above, at the weekend I was away at my step dad's house and he's got orthopedic mattresses, which give me absolute hell - I wake up more than normal and in quite a bit of pain, and by the morning I have quite a bit of pain in my bump.  However, back home it's a different matter, we have a 10 year old pocket-sprung very soft mattress, which is awesome to sleep in but we have 2 people shaped dips in the bed which isn't great for back support, so lets just say that even in my own bed I've been getting really achy.

DIET & WEIGHT
As I was away I wasn't able to weigh myself, but I did weigh myself one evening and overall since getting pregnant I'm up 3lbs and that's all - I'm pretty happy with that to say the least considering I'm now nearly 7.5 months pregnant :)

BUMP
As always, getting bigger all the time!  I still fit into my 3 maxi dresses so I'm pretty happy :)

NEXT APPOINTMENT
Tuesday morning - I'm now having weekly scans, one week to check the baby's growth, the next week to check the fluid levels.

BABY STUFF
So I've bought a few things this week, a changing mat, a bunch of clothes from Debenhams (I had a voucher left over from my birthday) and some swaddling wrap thingys for when Squidge is newborn :) I might put all of these into a haul post for you - the clothes at least, they're very cute :)


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