Pregnancy Stretch Marks

The warning you get earlier on when it comes to being pregnant is BEWARE OF THE STRETCH MARKS KLSDFJLSJFLSJLFDKSLKA.

So the moment I found out I was pregnant I started shopping around for the goods.

Now, I am not the type to apply lotion religiously like some women who does it consistently after showers. Kudos to you guys who are that consistent. I just can't be bothered. Ask all my 90% body lotions at home that I barely touched yet bought because of peer pressure from people with baby soft skin,

So I started off slow by buying the spray version first:

I loved this! But it does finishes up quite quickly since I tend to overspray myself a bit. LOL. It is such a time saving item as well; just spray it on, rub it in, tadaaaa! Less hassle, fast, smells awesome, yeah.

After that ran out, I purchased the Palmer's Tummy Butter next:

My friends were all into the creams and lotions, but I have never heard them mention the butter, so I got intrigued. The tummy butter has a balm consistency, so you really have to dig into the product if you are impatient in the mornings (like me). But it is super moisturising and I end up smelling like cocoa the whole day, so win.

However, I was starting to get impatient with the butter so I purchased the stretch marks lotion next:

The lotion is definitely a close tie with the spray. It absorbs into the skin really well (faster than the spray by the way) hence it is faster than the butter which needs a little bit more massaging into the skin.

Oh can you tell I like smelling like cocoa butter? Helps me curb my cravings for chocolate a bit. DO NOT LICK THE LOTION OMG WTH.

So the pattern that I am doing now is: lotion in the morning, tummy butter in the evening. However friends have warned me earlier on that if your mother used to have stretch marks, then there is a high chance you will end up with stretch marks as well. So, pfft.

Fingers crossed ay?

P/S: I heard they also have a range for baby products, but I can;t seemt o find them anywhere in my local Watsons and Guardians. Would love to have a chocolate smelling baby. XD But then again, I might end up biting the baby or nibbling the nose or something...

Expecting

Alhamdulillah, After 4 years of trying, we were surprised by an appearance of a double line on a random pregnancy test I took last year at the beginning of November.

We have been trying for a while, with me taking a variety of vitamins and supposedly creams to help with fertility. I went through 3 cycles of clomids, each dose higher than the one before, until I was referred to the General Hospital to got through fertility treatment.

We went through blood tests, multiple vaginal scans (ouchhhhhhh) and also HSG scans (horrible experience here). And were left with the option to do a hysteroscopy. A hysteroscopy is a minor surgical procedure where they insert a camera through a small cut via your navel to check your fallopian tubes and whether there is any blockage. If there are, then they would clean it up to make way for the eggs to go through.

My hysteroscopy was scheduled to be in January as requested by me as I wanted to do it after the semester has ended.

So guess how surprised we were when we had a spontaneous conception after this while! I had beem buying my ovulation and pregnancy tests in bulk from a seller on Facebook who sells them really cheap. I had just finished my period and a day later decided to randomly take an ovulation test. It was really bright so we tried our luck anyway.

One week later, out of the blue I just randomly did another ovulation test. Be aware that ovulation test are supposed to be super bright only once between your periods so I was surprised to see it bright a gain just a week later. I decided to try out a pregnancy test just for the fun of it (with minimal expectation by the way).

And lo and behold, there was a suuuuuuper faint double line on my test. So faint that I was not sure about it myself. But I have NEVER had a double line, EVER. I was shocked, my husband who saw it was shocked. We nearly cried then and there. But we decided to wait it out a bit just to be extra sure.

I bought this digital clearblue test eons ago, it was nearly expired! Haha! Used it after 2 months of being pregnant hahahaha!

Since that day, I started checking my morning pee every single morning, and the lines kept getting darker and darker. And we were getting surer by the day. On the fourth week we decided to do a scan and that's when I really cried.

There it was, the tiny bubble.

My obgyn confirmed I was pregnant and gave me all the necessary vitamins needed.

However a week later I experienced some bleeding which scared the crap out of me. I haven't told anyone at this point, not even my parents. I immediately rushed to my obgyn and had a scan. The bubble was still there, but my obgyn said to rest a lot and gave a medication to strengthen my uterus for the time being. The bleeding stopped after a few days, but i kept eating the medication for 3 weeks just to be cautious.

The eighth week was the most important scan ever. The heartbeat was the deciding factor whether the baby survived or not. It was a torturous 3 week period where I prayed and prayed so much hoping that the baby would be okay. And thankfully there it was, a faint flicker of the heartbeat. I cried again. Blame the hormones for all the crying.

8 week scan with a heartbeat! :')

12 week scan - super active!

Alhamdulillah, I am now in my sixth month of pregnancy (25th week and 5 days to be exact) and I couldn't be happier. I had minimal morning sickness and my husband has been ever so supportive of me throughout this journey. I really can't imagine not having him around.

There is more to the journey of my pregnancy of course, but I will save that for future posts. Or else this blogpost will go on forever. :p

Crush

Kinda obsessed with this:

If there's any song that needs to go BIG now, it is definitely this one. SUPER OBSESSED.

Oh Hello There

Hello 2016!

Two years has passed by, and I didn't make time to fill out this dusty 'ol blog, despite being an avid stalker of everyone else's blogs.

Travelled much? It has been an eventful 2 years where I have travelled to Japan twice (I really need to blog about my travels so I can share my tips and tricks of the trade), went to Bandung, KL a few more times, etc.

How's marriage life so far you ask? I have been married for 4 years to the man I have known for 12 years now, and despite our ups and downs, I love him with all my heart.

Any plan for kids yet? We are trying, so please keep us in your prayers. It has been quite a stressful time when people keep asking about it, though I know it is out of kindness and curiosity. I think I feel the utmost stressed out is when my parents and in-laws are asked that question. My dad especially would love to have a kid around the house again. So it does break my heart a little bit every time I think about it.

But nevertheless, I am now under the care of a great gynaecologist after seeing several (and having lack of chemistry with), I finally feel that with her I might actually have a chance of getting preggers soon. So we will keep on trying! Ganbarimasu!!!

Hopefully happier news will be posted in this blog sooner or later.

Amin. :')

Raya 2014 in Photos

Had a blast! Ate a lot! Drank a lot! Avoided "when are you getting preggy?" questions a lot!

First day raya with the hubs' family! 

#cheesyselfie for raya's #ootd

BFF came for second house raya. Which is rare because being a doctor, she is not always around during Raya. And to think next week she is being posted in Saratok! :( Gotta find someone else to go on a sushi binge. 

Couldn't decide what to wear so I wore a black maxi dress with a male kimono top tied with a gold obi-like waist ribbon.

Family photo shoot day with hubs's family! #celcomblue

Wore my instant shawl from luvhijab.com for the first time. Have a love-hate relationship with it really. XD

Visited BFF's baby Mayya TWICE. And most probably will be visiting again 23847923479274 times. LULZ.

Weird faces for Raya. Bottom right is my favourite. Obviously. PFFTTT.

Went to visit pregnant EVA with sister in law with hopes that her pregnancy is contagious. Wish me luck guys! And lots of prayers for us too! :3

Mum turned 51 on 5th Syawal! Okay so it looks 15 in the photo. XD

With adorable Alisya who got excited seeing herself in the phone's front camera. 8D

Not so excited when my younger sister in law joined in the photo. "WAIT. WHO DAT?" D8

Visited Iyori-chan and bid farewell to our work colleague and my fellow Japanese Language Teacher, Mayu Sensei. Iyori-chan, Y U SO GRUMPY. Haha!

How was YOUR raya? (^_^)

TFIOS Special Early Screening

YES YES YES.

I GOT INTO THE SPECIAL EARLY SCREENING OF THE FAULT IN OUR STARSSSSSS

KALSHFAJKLSHDLAJKDKLAJDLADASFJAFHLFA!

Basically, the tickets started selling on the 2nd of June, and immediately during Sahur, I purchased mine!

It was a full house show by the way, and you could feel the sense of excitedness in the hall since obviously everyone there had read the book beforehand. The special screening was only done on Saturday and Sunday. The actual release date will be around the next 2 weeks. Felt so happy being among the first in Kuching to watch it!

Fangirled a lot over the posters of course:

The movie was BEAUTIFUL. They managed to stay true to the book about 95% of the time and I loved EVERYTHING. I cried about every 15 minutes for every sad scene they shown. By the end, I can hear in the hall that I wasn't the only one sobbing into a tissue. I will not give away any spoilers in case you haven't read the book yet.

But please, do pick it up, it is a light read and you could probably finish it in about a day to 3 days. It is THAT good.

#waybetterlovestorythanTwilight duh.

Monday Giggles

Thanks to my husband sharing this on my FB wall, I have been watching it every day for the past few days on repeat.

I CANNOT STOP WATCHING IT OMG.

HEY.

Book Review - The Fault in Our Stars

After watching Teens React to The Fault in Our Stars Trailer, I just had to get the book and see what all the hype was about. The book is apparently the next big thing after the Divergent series. It is a teen story, so I jumped on the bandwagon since I like light reading materials.

So at the international terminal of KLIA, while waiting for my flight to Tokyo (which I really should blog about later! Fingers crossed, bahah) I stumbled upon the last copy of the book at the book store and immediately snagged it (along with a copy of March Cleo) to read on the trip.

Now, I am embarrassed to say that I didn't actually read it until the very last train ride to the airport on the last day of my trip. Because it was an hour plus journey from Asakusa station.

And wow.

I could not put the book down! I was smiling, giggling, frowning all my way through the book. It is a very awesome read! Different than the norms. I'd love to explain the story but I'll just quote from Wikipedia since it doesn't have any spoilers there.

"The Fault in Our Stars is the fourth novel by author John Green, published in January 2012. The story is narrated by a sixteen-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she subsequently meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player andamputee.
The title is inspired by a famous line from Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar (Act 1, scene 2). The nobleman Cassius says to Brutus, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / But in ourselves, that we are underlings.'"

The author is actually a YouTuber, one of the vlogbrothers. Oh and even more awesome news is that a movie on it will be out soon! *squeal*]

Check out the trailer:

I rarely would review a book, but this was just too good not to. I am looking forward to read other books by the same author, since reviews about them have been amazing! I just might have found a new author to be obsessed with! Next on my list:

The Divergent Series
The Hunger Game Series

Can you see my pattern here? Movie books make me happy because they help me visualize them more. Haha. And who says teen reads are only for teens? Pfffttt.

Okay? Okay. 

p/s: That's a quote from the book, btw. lol.

#PRAYFORMH370

Last Saturday, the world was shocked by the news of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared from the radar at 2.40am en route from KL to Beijing.

Search parties are doing their very best to search for the plane and bring everyone home. Nothing is confirmed yet. STOP the rumours. STOP the speculations. And STOP the assumptions. And definitely STOP joking around about it. 

Miracles happen once in a while, when you BELIEVE. 

Do NOT lose HOPE. KEEP PRAYING.

British Youtubers

Here's a fun fact.

I was actually born in Kuching, but raised in England. My first language is actually English. And not that fancy Queen's English, the suburban English. I had the thickest Cockney accent! XD I returned to Malaysia at the age of 6 though, and the accent gradually faded away, which is actually such a shame. Though I find it does sometimes appear when I am randomly conversing with actual Brits.

I feel that my English has become soooo Americanized due to hours of watching all of these American TV series. I even had a bank staff asking me about my accent and I was sort of bamboozled by it.

However.

I have recently discovered some awesome British YouTubers that I am absolutely LOVING at the moment. And dare I say it? I might fancy them more than the American YouTubers. Watching British YouTubers, especially their vlogs, makes me want to jump on a plane to the UK and reminisce all the places I used to live and visit. :D So yes, that is officially in my bucket list now! I will try to achieve that in 5 years. Fingers Crossed! Now on to my favourite British YouTubers!

Louise from SprinkleofGlitter

She is one of the funniest person ever! And her daughter Darcy is the one that got me subscribing! Totally adorable!!! She has a beautiful family, and her vlogs are so much fun to watch! She is so real, and genuinely funny that if I were to meet her in real life, I feel that I could befriend her instantly!

Zoella

One of the top British Makeup Guru now and bff of Louise above there. She is sooooo cute! Her vlogs are also awesome and captivating! BTW, she just got the cutest guinea pigs! 8D

Tanya Burr

She is so fun and sweet! She seems like to have love for everybody! At times she can be clumsy (ie. in the kitchen lol) but she is so real! I don't feel like she is pretentious and such.

Bubzbeauty

Okay so technically she is actually Chinese, but she was raised in, waitaminute. Scotland? Ireland? I am pretty sure it was Ireland. Okay just googled. She is from Northern Ireland. Yes! Got my accents right! :D I have to say though, lately I am enjoying her vlogs so much more than her beauty vids. Just because I can't stop laughing my arse (see what I did there? XD) off to them.

FleurdeForce

Omg, she is sooooo pretty! Her eyes are so round and her lashes are, gah. I love how honest she is when she review stuff, that some might find her being snobbish and complaining but to be honest, the accent sort of does make anything you say sound fancy. LOL. Her vlogs are also awesome and she usually includes her very good-looking husband in her videos who is super funny. And her dogs are precious! :D She is also the first British YouTuber I subscribed! So thanks Fleur!

Sammi from TheBeautyCrush

My latest find over the weekend! She is sooooo gorgeous! In such a natural way.She doesn't wear a heavy load of makeup from what I can see in her videos, just bright lipsticks. But I guess it helps if you have the most gorgeous eyes evarrrrr! She is also super cute and funny. And her accent definitely brings back memories! :)

If you are looking for something new to get addicted to, subscribe! :D

Touché

I am a huge fan of BuzzFeed!

If you haven't discovered the website yet, you should! For me it is a nice alternative from the usual memes and trolls on 9Gag, which I love, by the way. But sometimes I would love to read something that is actually linked to the real world for once. Haha. So I discovered BuzzFeed and I check it nearly every hour of the day when i first found out about it. Now it is more a daily morning routine. :p

I haven't been checking it out for a while so when I scrolled through it this morning, checking out all the stories I have missed out, I apparently had scrolled down to the very end. And guess what popped up?

BoyzIIMen's "End of the Road" started playing. OMG SO MUCH LOL. XD

I AM SHERLOCKED

Just finished watching all three seasons last night.

SO. MUCH. AWESOMENESS.

2014

I will not say to be "thin" or "slim" because I think that will just be demotivating. (=_=)

Busan Haul

Yes, Yes, I know. I have been naughty and abandoning my blog. (=_=)

But, hey, it is the end of the semester and time gets super busy!!! Assessments, keying in marks, filling out the SKT forms, argh.

But hey, enough about my rantings, lets get on with the goodies!

This has been a looooongggg postponed post, but it'll come around now! :D

These are some stuffs I got pressured into buying wasted my money on bought!

An ice cream I bought at 7-11 because I was suuuuper hungry and they had ran out of salmon/tuna onigiri. (=_=) Was really yummy btw! 

This reminded me of Solero Shots! I remember seeing YouTuber Macbarbie07 eating this a lot in her videos. I think this was Cotton Candy flavoured! Yum!

BEST. CHOCOLATE. COOKIES. EVAR. Got this at Daiso for 1200 won. About RM3.60! Instantly regretted not buying 11297319827319 boxes to bring back. According to Lynn, Malaysians totally dig this! They buy like tons of this to bring back. Should have listened to her properly. Damn. 

Sorry. Had sushi cravings. My family cannot get used to Korean food sadly. Totally rejected Kimchi. So Japanese. LOL. THIS WAS BLOODY EXPENSIVE BTW. 

Aaaah. The infamous banana milk! Got this on a buy 2 free 1 offer. 

SO DAMN CHEAP! 20 face masks for rm30!!!! Bought these to give away as souvenirs. My skin is somewhat rejecting them. SO SAD. (T__T)

Etude House sale! That acne set here cost me rm60++. Over there it is RM22. WHATTTTT. BUY BUY BUY. The makeup remover set was RM24. The rest was basically less than rm20. 

FREEBIES. FREE SAMPLES EVERYWHEREEEE. Even if you are merely buying one thing. HAHAHAHA.

Nature Republic Haul. Perfume was only RM45 for a huge bottle! Score. 

Bought the Aqua moisturiser because it is apparently their bet selling product and is compared to Biotherm's Aquasource moisturiser. It is a HUGE tub, and was only RM24. The aloe vera gel is VERY popular there. This was about RM10- RM15. But definitely less than RM20!

Got this super cute long-sleeved shirt for RM21! Steal! I actually bought A LOT of clothes at Gukje Market. Since there were shops like RM10 CLOTHES ONLY! RM20 CLOTHES ONLY! RM40 CLOTHES ONLY! I went mad. Obviously. Thank God the Koreans love loose fitting clothes. MAkes it easier for my chubby fats. XD

Here is me wearing it:

Another shirt I bought. 10,000 won. RM30!!! LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Of course. When in Korea, buy socks! 1000 won each. Only RM3!!!! I wish they had more superheroes though. 8D

BTW if you are on Dayre! Do follow me! *shamless self-promoting moment*

http://dayre.me/najwahanani