What I learned ~ All about Cloth

I knew that I was going to have a big baby, my husband was 10lb 10 oz and I was 8lb 8 oz at birth, I fully expected to be having a baby that was around 9 pounds.  Lots of blogs and things I read said that newborn diapers were pointless only fit for a week or two, and not to bother with them and just get xs covers that would last a lot longer. It seemed like good advice. I really really wish I hadn't listened.  C was 8lb11oz, he was a big boy and we probably would have been OK with ill fitting covers had he gained weight after birth, he lost a pound and took a month and a half to get back to his birth weight. We managed with small overs and prefold after a week or so of doing disposables (we went ended up using nearly three packages of newborn diapers there are maybe 6 or so left in the last package that I plan to use for the 1st day or so for the next baby so we don't have to deal with cloth and the brand new baby poop.)

Lesson one: is get a few newborn covers, buy them used,they last forever since they are only lightly used and, they have a few advantages such as the cut out for the umbilical cord and since they really do only wear them for a little while they last for ever. Lots of cloth moms pass the newborn stash of diapers around the neighborhood, so if you have friends that use cloth ask if you can borrow the newborn sizes.

Lesson two:You really do want a snappi, When we started we just couldn't see why we really needed a snappi, sure it was a littler harder to get the prefold in the cover with out one but we managed until C started rolling and I gave in and bough a snappi, Seriously wish I had done it sooner it makes prefolds so much easier. We ended up getting three one that lived in the diaper bag one that stayed on the baby and one at home on the changing table. On really messy diapers they sometimes get yucky or when changing wiggle worms its nice to be able to finish the change and wash the snappi later to get the yuck off.

Lesson three: Try a little of everything. Starting out I said we only need a few covers and prefolds, all the pockets, fitted, all in one, insert business seems unnecessary and so much more expensive. We rocked prefolds and a few brands of covers as well as a combination of snaps and apex. Starting out we loved the apex covers, I had compleatly been converted to snaps, they don't come unstuck in the wash and attack everything in the machine. We started using a combination of fitted diapers and prefolds until we out grew out current sized prefolds and all our friends were raving over one size pocket diapers so we switched and have completely fazed out our prefold usage.

Lesson four:  Start buying diapers early. I knew what I wanted and still was so overwhelmed by the choices of kinds of covers and types of prefolds. I was so worried I was going to make a mistake and I didn't want to "waste" my diaper budget buying the wrong thing.That I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything. I know now that buying something that's not right for you or your baby happens, its easy to resell your stash if you need to and having a back up of stuff you don't love is better than having no back up at all.Trust yourself really you can't go wrong. If your not sure buy one of a few different kinds of diapers and once your little one can wear them you can sell the ones you don't like and buy more of the ones you do.

Night Dipaers ~ All about Cloth

At some point I think every mother hits a break up point with cloth diapers, for most this breaking point is night time. I was blessed with a baby who loves to sleep, even as a newborn he would go down for the night and other than nursing constantly he was not to be bothered. Before he learned to roll over a single microfiber insert and a pre-fold was enough to keep him try with no night changes. Suddenly he decided that sleeping on his tummy or side was much better than his back and we had huge leak issues.

I researched online and was lucky to stumble across a post by another mom talking about how she had a son who was a heavy wetter and a side sleeper and the liquid just leaked out the leg holes. That night I tried a micro fleece insert, then a prefold that was folded and snappied on, then a fitted diaper then another insert inside a cover with leg gussets.
No leaks,

We varied the layers play around with different types of inserts bamboo, hemp, microfiber. The fitted diaper was a homemade flannel and terry cloth. the key, for us anyway was that the extra elastic in the fitted diaper helped keep the liquid from pooling out the legs. The diaper is huge (see the big butt on the baby in the photo) but not having to get up and change diapers in the night or waking up to a wet bed and wet baby is wonderful.


Now that hes older we just do a normal diaper for night, we are currently doing a bamboo blend insert folded in half in the front plus a microfiber and second bamboo blend inside a Alva pocket diaper. It seems to work well for us.

A note: some kids don't react well to micro fleece right against the skin, I would recommend  a bamboo or hemp blend right against the skin, the wick the liquid way better and I'm sure the natural fibers feel better than the micro fleece.

Sleep

I love watching C sleep. I was blessed with a baby who loves to sleep long naps,and through the night, cuddled up on his micro fleece blanket he sleeps and sleeps not even waking up to nurse just moving open mouth and closed eyes to where I am laying making his impatience little milk noises. I love feeling his body grow heavy when he gives in the power of the ergo nap, or watching him try to keep his eyes open when he nurses down at night.  Sleeping babies are the best so calm and peaceful. He wakes up full of happy smiles and hugs and kisses, it is worth all the early nights of sitting up struggling to keep my own eyes open, to be able to watch him now away in his milky dreams.

We have been busy

We have been working on selling stuff at the farmers market and getting ready for the baby. Both things have been taking up a lot of time. Here are a few pictures of what we have been up too.  We painted our bedroom and moved all the baby things into our room. We are currently 22 weeks pregnant and everything is going really well this time and we are excited getting ready for our new baby who is due in October.

Getting ready for painting and our new puppy

Baby's new space

organizing baby things

20 weeks baby bump

Almost Edible veggies

Almost Edible fruits

Farmers market. We have been selling our fruits and veggies as well as jewlery for a few weeks now at the local market and have been having a lot of fun. You can check out our website Roxy Roo website

Best pregnancy symptoms ever

I just want to say I feel lucky that the 2nd trimester has been amazing lately and I'm grateful that it is.
I love feeling the baby move, the little flips and butterflies, the wiggles and pressure. Yesterday Rob and I where laying in bed reading which seems to be baby's time to wiggle, and I got kicked harder than the little popcorn bubbles, it was a good flick, so cool.

I love nesting, I'm not sure that Rob is a huge fan of having me pulling everything out and going through it, but I do know that he likes the end result of clean house.

I love baby socks they are so tinny and the idea that we are going to have a little person who's feet fit in them is exciting.

I love showing, Love the baby bump and looking pregnant. I love picking out what to wear that is going to show off my new shape.

I love having energy. Not just to do things but to care about things, to not be so exhausted that I don't even have energy to be passionate about anything.

AND
I love that there are all theses things to love about pregnancy.

Midwife

Yesterday we had our appointment with our Midwife. Baby is measuring well, and has a strong heartbeat of 150 bpm. Everything else was great. Happy, happy happy.  I only got in a little trouble for not having started taking alfalfa, which I was supposed to start last time, but I started taking it yesterday and if taking goat food pills is what is needed for a healthy baby then I will gladly take them.

We've been working on setting up the baby things and I have decided to have a Blessing way instead of a baby shower when we go back to Portland in July. (I'll post more on what a blessing way is and how we are planning on doing it tomorrow)

The sun is out. Rob is making an omelet with fresh free range local chicken eggs, which always taste better than the store bought kind, and we got them for free (perks of knowing actually knowing the chickens) which makes them taste even better.

I have all sorts of plans for sewing fruits today, watermelons, oranges, pears, and apples.
I just feel happy and like today is going to be a good day.

Good news

Yesterday I went in to the doctors office to get a blood draw and a check up. Good news, iron levels are back up and I'm no longer anemic. It's nice to have something go well. One less hurtle to face.
The only bad thing is the doctor was saying that we should wait 6 months till we try again.
 I don't know if we will wait that long, but we may wait a little longer than we had planned to just to make sure.

We have been going to the pool and I've gotten out the work out dvd's out. My new years resolution is to work hard get getting healthy for baby to be. I just feel like I owe it to both babies (our son and  baby to be) to take this seriously and work hard getting as healthy as I can. It wasn't like I was lacking when we got pregnant last time but there where moments that I slacked off.  When I didn't follow the Brewers diet, didn't go to the pool. I know that this time there will not be that sort of "oh lets just have pizza, and skip the gym" moments. Gone are the high fructose corn syrup, the ingredients that are hard to say, we've even given up the lotions and things that go on our skin that don't get a good score on skin deep a great website that rates products based on how safe the ingredients in them are.

Family

I am lucky, my family is amazing, they have been supportive. They get it, as much as anyone can.
My husband called my mom, and my mother-in-law from the waiting room of the hospital while I was in surgery. I can't even imagine what that phone call was like, to make or get.

My mother in law drove down to our house, with a packet of information on miscarriage, and flowers. She talked to me, while Rob slept, I was so hyper from the medications, that I couldn't sleep. That weekend my mom drove the 6.5 hours from Portland to Moscow to be there when we buried our baby.

We had put our baby in the freezer, later I took the hospital receiving blanket that my MIL brought and cut a small corner of it and wrapped our baby up, my mom knit a blanket that we wrapped him in as well.
 Its very surreal to go shopping for a box to bury your baby in. We went to a major shopping center and bought a plastic container and then to another store where we found a wooden jewelry box that the 1st box fit in.

When we buried our baby,  my sister in law and her family came. Other family members reached out telling us how sorry they where, supporting us. I cannot imagine what it would be like to go through this with out having a family that cares. I feel lucky that we have all this support. That is what I am thankful for this holiday season.

Mommy

I have written a little about the fact that I'm a nanny. Baby J was 2 months old when I started watching him he is now 2 years old. Today he was at our house thundering around yelling "mommy" at  me. "mommy read this." "mommy sit" He has always called me "mommy", and I have always called him "baby". Just around the time that we lost the baby he started calling me Carlie occasionally but for the most part its still mommy.  It's bittersweet we have a bond, but now having him call me mommy makes me want to cry. I cuddle with him in our bed read Pajama Time, rocked him and sang 'I've been working on the railroad' (it is the only lullaby that works) and put him down for a nap in our bed under a lime green hippo blanket, theses are things I should be doing with my baby come March and won't.

When we 1st lost the baby, the kids mom kept calling asking if we needed anything, saying they could just swing by. I didn't want to see baby J. I dreaded seeing C and  F, didn't want to go into the whole where is the baby conversation. It took a few days before I could see them, could deal with going back to work, when I did go back things where OK, different but OK.

In heaven, under the ground

When our dog died in 2009, the kids that I watch, discussed where Bear had gone in the way that 3 and 4 year olds do. "He's in Heaven under the ground." was the consensus. When someone dies they go to heaven and they get buried.

We had gone for an ultrasound to check on the baby and they had stopped by afterward. C's mommy told her that we had gotten pictures of the baby. C gave us the look you give someone who's trying to pull a fast one and said that you can't take a picture of something in your tummy. Then she said. " Could you hear the baby crying?"
I didn't see them again until after our baby died, C asked me about it on the car ride home one day.

"You had a baby in your tummy." she said "But now there is no baby in your tummy."
"That's right" I told her, "Our baby died because he came out of my tummy too soon and he was too small"
"So, he is in heaven under the ground." She said, "Why did he die?"
I told her that babies have to stay in their mommies tummies for a long time and that our baby didn't stay in long enough and he was too little. That he was in heaven under the ground and that we had buried him at his grandmas house. 
"But my mommy had babies in her tummy and we didn't die." She said.
I told her that  that was because when they where babies they stayed in their mommies tummy until they where big enough to come out.
It is probably one of the hardest conversations to have, how do you explain the senselessness of the whole thing? a specially to a child. It isn't something anyone should have to do.
A few days after we had this conversation her older brother F said "Your baby died."
I told him "That's right." 
C said "He's at his grandmas house"

a Hobbits Life

Not the fuzzy footed guys obsessed  with jewelery, rather the secluded recluse locked away from the world. There is a part of me that feels I could quite happily disappear beneath my comforter and never come out. Even now there is part of me that flickers with jealousy and darkness when I see pregnant women or brand new babies.
After our baby died I just wanted to disappear. I didn't want to write the facebook post saying our baby is dead, didn't want to tell the Bradly class we didn't need to come anymore. A lot of people jump back into work, but my work is babies.
I work as a nanny for three kids F who is 5, C who is 4, and babyJ who just turned 2. Kids who where excited that their was a baby in my tummy. Kids that I was dreading having a conversation with. I have gone back to work, but it's not the same as it was before. Its much easier to take care of someone else kids when you think that having your own is easy.
No matter how much I want to disappear, hideaway from people, it's not practical or healthy. So I go out and pretend to be normal and try and act like the babies, that seem to be everywhere, don't make my heart stop for a second. Maybe there will be a day that I don't have to act anymore when I will feel like a normal person and not have to just act like one.

Baby things

When your pregnant the list of  things "that are absolutely necessary for a baby" is long. We had been working on getting everything ready for our impending bundle of joy. We had bouncy seats,tinny socks, onesies, and a crib.
Suddenly we where a little lacking in joy and had an overabundance in baby things. It took me a while to be able to put our baby things away, clearing out my dresser of all the maternity clothing, packing up the baby's things. At the bottom of our closet is a pile of nursing pillows and a whole  lot of defeat. I know  that sounds mellow dramatic.
I managed to get everything put away, with an exception of the crib. It has been sitting in our bedroom.We had set up since before we got pregnant. Now I'm dismantling it, putting it in the basement.
Its a good thing clearing the baggage the baby gear and the emotional. All though is sad putting it all away unneeded and unused. Its slightly liberating. Maybe in a few months we will have a reason to pull it all out again. That idea makes me a little excited.

1st comes love, then comes marriage, then comes ...

You don't think about having a baby being a hard thing to do. When you are young, newly married, happy it seems natural that the next step.

I took the job seriously stopped drinking coffee, started working out, eating right, taking prenatal vitamins. I read every baby/pregnancy book I could get my hands on.
So many of the books talked about how hard it could be. Little windows of time, basil temperatures, low sperm count, charting, three month average. It was a little daunting.

We where lucky the first month we started trying we got lucky. At our wedding we where 6 weeks pregnant. It was exciting to get to share the news with all our family who live so far from us.
I loved everything about being pregnant. Morning sickness, swelling baby bump. Everything was wonderful, everything was going well until I started bleeding.

They tell you don't tell anyone that you are expecting until after 12 weeks. once you get to that second trimester your past the danger of miscarrying, the probability of a late miscarriage is low.

At 13 weeks I started bleeding, which can be nothing. Our baby's heart was beating strong, on the ultrasound the Dr. had a hard time counting it because our little wiggle worm was all over the place. Good signs.

For the next few weeks I couldn't lift, had to take it easy, the bleeding turned into light spotting.
At 16 weeks (4 months)
I woke up in pain my water broke. I was in labor. A few hours later our son was born. a few hours later I had emergency surgery. A few hours after that I was sent home.
No longer pregnant, no longer expecting.

The placental just peeled away separated from the wall until my baby couldn't breath anymore.
Physically I'm lucky, the hospital was horrible, I'm lucky i didn't die. In a few months we should be able to try again. There is no reason to think anything bad will happen.
I am lucky.

Before...

I have never been one of those people who "gets it." I'm always a step behind just a little bit different and slower than everyone else at just about everything. When I was a preteen I made this list of things I needed to be a teenager. Enough shades of nail polish for each finger and toe, posters on my walls, lip gloss. I kept adding to the list because as I fulfilled each requirement I didn't feel closer to being a real teenager. I still felt like I was playing a part.Grown up life has been like that too, I spent so much time thinking about what it meant to be a grown up. A house, car, job, husband. That sometimes I feel like I missed a step. Their is that point between living at home with your parents and having your own house that I glazed over.Here I am at married, with a house, a car, job, plans to start trying to be someones mommy and I sometimes feel like I must have missed something.
I love my life, I love my husband, our house, my job. Its an amazing dream life, that I never truly thought I'd end up getting. I feel so lucky to have all that I have. It is an amazing sense of security and grounding support that has allowed me to grow in so many ways.
For the 1st time in my life I feel that I don't need a list. I don't need to watch other people and try and copy what they have. It is an amazing feeling happiness.
A happiness that was intensified by being pregnant.