Blog Fever and Being Shown Up

Apparently all of this posting has boosted my blogging confidence, and I now think that I'm capable of maintaining not one, but two blogs! Yep, that's right, tease me if you will, but I've started a blog for my child - well, about him really. I decided that I like this blog being about my experiences and perspectives, but realized that some of my family and friends really just want to hear about Cy (honestly, probably just his grandparents, but still). Plus, I'm pretty crappy at scrapbooking, so this is my compromise. At the moment the blog is open, but will soon be made private. If all two of you who read this blog want to read that one too, post a comment and I'll invite you. You can check it out here but know that I've essentially posted the first post here as well.

So about a month ago at Cy's 2 month check-up, we told his doctor that Cy absolutely despises tummy time. Every time we put him on his tummy he immediately dropped his head to the ground and began the closest thing to a temper tantrum that a 2 month old is capable of - screaming, crying and flailing of limbs. We told her that he pretty much just gives up. So she decides to see how he does on his tummy. She grabbed him by the arms and put him on his tummy. Here comes the being shown up part. His arms were straight back against his sides and the first thing he does is lift his chest up, mermaid style. then, he promptly rolls off of the exam table! Fortunately, the doctor was quick and she caught him. Making liers out of us already!

Of course, we get home, and he's having none of it. He flat out refuses to roll over, and though he gives it a minute or two before the wailing begins, he's still pretty unhappy on his tummy. Fast forward to this past Saturday and we have a friend over. After explaining just how much he hates tummy time, we put Cy on his tummy, and what does he do? Rolls over! Shown up again! We tried to get him to do it again later that day and the following day, but yet again, he was having none of it.

Finally yesterday, the day he turned three months old, I put him on his tummy and - voila! He rolled over. Still not convinced it wasn't a fluke, I put him back on his tummy and again! He rolled over! Four times in total and once this morning tells me we've reached another milestone! And, just for a little shameless bragging, here's a video clip:

Finally! Cyrus's Birth Story

Seeing as how Cyrus is three months old today, I thought it would be appropriate to finally share his birth story. Before he was born, I enjoyed reading others' birth stories, and had already decided that I would post mine as well. I figured that I would get it up not more than two weeks after he was born. Well, a few things have kept me from that, not the least of which is Cyrus himself. But, if I'm really honest, part of the reason that this is such a hard story to write is that it isn't the story I wanted to be writing. Let me warn you in advance, this is a looooong post. I won't be offended if you don't read the whole thing. I tried to pare it down as much as possible, but then, my labor was long too!

Jason and I planned and prepared for a natural birth, and by that I mean unmedicated, with as few interventions as possible. At the very least, I wanted to avoid an epidural and I wanted absolutely no part of a c-section. In my preparation, I read lots of birth stories and a few books, followed a few blogs and, most of all, enrolled Jason and I in the Bradley Method of Natural Childbirth classes. There were 12 classes in total and they covered good nutrition and exercise, information on various forms of intervention and how best to avoid them, relaxation exercises, and strategies for our labor coaches - our husbands. We tried to go with a midwife at a Birthing Center, but it wasn't covered by insurance and we couldn't afford to pay out of pocket. We ended up with a midwife practice through Kaiser. And, even after all of our planning and preparation, I wanted some extra insurance for my natural birth, so we hired a doula, our childbirth instructor Sarah.

Now, I knew that if I had to be induced, I had a higher chance of getting additional interventions, particularly if pitocin was used, and a higher chance of ending up with a c-section. So, starting from 37 weeks, I began praying and hoping that I would go into labor. Then June 27th (my due date) came and went. I tried acupuncture, nipple stimulation, pressure points, and walking. Oh my did I walk. I met with one of my midwives and discovered that I was dilated at all - "Not even a dimple" she said. We decided that as long as I had a few non-stress tests, I could wait until July 11th, a full two weeks after my due date. The stress just kept building. I even tried the Murphy's Law of labor induction - at 41 weeks, Jason and I went to Black Butte for 4th of July, a good 2.5 hour drive from Portland, and at least 2 hours from the nearest Kaiser hospital. Still nothing. A few days before July 11th, I met with another midwife to plan my induction. If I didn't go into labor on my own, the I would come in at 6am on July 11th to be induced. Oh the stress!

On Friday, July 10th I had contractions off and on all day, and they were certainly stronger than they had previously been, but still nothing to get excited about. That night we took our dog to Jason's sister's and got ourselves all ready to go and then went to bed. We were nervous and stressed, but also a little excited, because we figured that at the very least we'd have our baby by Sunday night.

I woke up at 2:00am for no particular reason, and then about 30 seconds later I felt my water break. I bolted for the bathroom, calling to Jason as I went that my water had broken. Well, he decides that the best course of action is to just put down some towels and go back to bed, especially since my contractions weren't particularly strong. However, I realized pretty quickly that there was meconium, which can be a sign of distress, so I decided we should go in. After all, they were expecting us in a few hours anyway.

When we arrived, the contractions were coming every 3 minutes and lasting 45 seconds - usually a pretty good sign. However, they still weren't particularly strong and I was only dilated to 1.5cm, and about 65% effaced - not great for a woman who is supposed to be in labor. Now, one thing I have to mention is that our Kaiser hospital experience was amazing. The very first thing the labor triage nurse did was ask for our birth plan, and then she proceeded to inform the first midwife we saw of our wishes. This happened every time there was a nurse shift change. So they put me in a room, and Jason and I commenced waiting. We walked, I ate some breakfast, we walked some more. Around 11am, I thought the contractions were picking up so I asked Jason to call Sarah and I asked the nurses if I could go in the labor tub. Sarah arrived at about 1pm, while I was in the tub. Things had died down a little while in the tub, so I decided to get out and walk around.

Around 2pm, everything stopped. Nothing. No contractions, not even a twinge. The nurses wanted to start pitocin, but we asked them to hold off. We tried EVERYTHING. I walked all over the hospital, I got in the shower, I tried nipple stimulation, the whole thing. With each passing moment I got more and more stressed out, which I'm sure didn't help. I felt like time was just ticking away. At around 8pm, Jason asked our nurse, a fantastic woman named Ann Hathaway, of all things, if I could maybe get some sleep. I had been up for a long time, and we thought that might help. So I did. I slept for maybe 2 hours or so. Then I woke up with what I thought was the start of my real labor. I had a few strong contractions over the next two hours, so we called our nurse back in. Of course, the minute she arrived, they stopped. Finally, at about 1:30am, we consented to start pitocin, almost 24 hours after my water broke.

Even with the pitocin, which I knew could bring on brutal contractions, I was determined to labor without any pain medication. We called Jason's sister Angie, who had planned to be with us, and we got labor going. The contractions slowly built over the next several hours. I continued to walk around the halls as much as I could, squatting with each contraction to try and bring that baby down. At around 11am (this is Sunday morning now) we called Sarah back (we sent her home when labor stalled) as the contractions had really picked up. At some point I got back in the tub, which sort of helped, but not really. And yet, I still felt like I had it under control.

At about 2pm, I was in the shower, and the contractions were intense. I was exhausted, and really struggling. My labor nurse at the time, a woman who supposedly was very pro-natural birth, came in and said something along the lines of, "It's ok if you get help if you need it. Maybe you just can't handle this". Well, that was what I needed. I gathered myself up, and just started repeating to Jason "I can do this, right? I can handle this?"

We headed to the bed, and I found my groove. I was holding Jason's hand on one side, and Angie's hand on the other, and they were pretty much supporting my body weight, and Sarah was sitting in front of me. The contractions rocked my body, and I could no longer stay silent. Sarah told me to try saying "Yes" instead of no, and to moan deeply if I needed to make noise, which I did. All I could concentrate on was saying "Yes" as I was hit with each contraction. At some point, I threw up and I knew then that I was going through transition, which I had been told usually happened around 7 or 8 cm. At about 6:30pm I asked to be checked. I figured it wouldn't be much longer now. The midwife checked me and, are you ready for this? 4cm.

That's right, all that work, and I was only at 4cm. That broke me. I lost all motivation, and I pretty much knew at that point that I couldn't do it anymore. My supports tried to keep me going, Jason and Sarah and Angie kept encouraging me. We tried the tub again, but the contractions were peaking at the very beginning, giving me no time to prepare. Plus, I was so tired from having been at this for so long that I kept falling asleep between contractions, and then waking up in excruciating pain. We got a new nurse at around 7pm, Shannon, and she was incredible. She kept encouraging me, and holding me off as I began to ask for drugs. Looking back, my whole attitude had changed. I was no longer saying Yes with each contraction, but instead "I can't do this". At about 8:30, they all convinced me to get checked before I went ahead and got the epidural. I got out of the tub and threw up again. When the midwife checked me I was at a 6. Better, but I knew at that point that I if I had any hope of pushing this baby out, I needed to get some sleep. I caved and asked for the epidural.

At 9pm, I got the epidural and was surprised that I wasn't pain free. I felt intense pressure at the top of my stomach with each contraction. However, it was enough that I could go to sleep for a few hours. I woke at about 2am (Monday morning - 48 hours after my water broke) with intense pain in one little part of my abdomen, going straight through to my back. This is what they call a "window," where the epidural doesn't work in one little area and the a pain peeks through. But, because of the epidural, I couldn't really change positions on my own. I was stuck, and it was awful.

Finally, at about 4am I was fully dilated. I pushed a little, but they realized he was facing sunny side up. They reposition me to see if they could get the baby to turn and I laid like that for about an hour and a half. At 6am I began to push. By this point, there was no epidural, and I was at the highest level of pitocin. I pushed in every imaginable position - squatting, hands and knees, on my side, on my back. The contractions were coming every 1-2 minutes. Now, what I didn't anticipate was that I would be in pain in between contractions - excruciating pain in my hips and legs. I had no break.

A little before 8am, the midwife on-call, Tom, came in and checked me and said that if he pushed on my perineum he could see the head. I asked him for a rough estimate of how much longer and he said about an hour. Ok, I can do this, I thought. At 8am, the shifts changed and the new midwife on call came in to check me. She realized they had been tracking my heart beat instead of his, so she called for an internal fetal monitor. Then she checked me again and gave me some crushing news. After pushing for 2.5 hours, the baby hadn't dropped into my pelvis - in fact, he was still at a -2, where he was when I came into the hospital over two days before. Her words were "Your baby is doing fine, so you can keep pushing if you want to, but I'm not convinced he's going to be born vaginally".

That was it for me. I looked at the faces around me - Angie, Jason, Sarah, - and just said "I'm ready to meet my baby". Jason and I had a minute together and we decided to go ahead with a C-section - the one thing I had dreaded above all else. Even now, it brings tears to my eyes to think about it.

So, at 9:35am, on Monday, July 13th, 2 weeks and 2 days past his due date, Cyrus Thompson Wells was born via C-section. He weighed 8lbs 6oz, was 21.5 inches long and had a 15 inch head. Here are some labor stats for you:

Total hours in labor: 55.5

Total hours with pitocin: 31

Hours on pitocin with no epidural: 19

Hours pushing: 2.5

I have several thoughts on my labor, but seeing as how this post is already a novel, I will save those for another day. I'll just end with this: The process was not what we hoped for, but at the end of the day, every decision was ultimately ours, and, what matters most is that we got our baby boy.

Jason, Amber and Cyrus one day after Cy's birth.

A special kind of procrastinating

Tonight I tackled a project that's been gnawing at me for some time - I organized my dresser drawers. When we moved Portland in March, I was about 5 months pregnant and fully in maternity clothes. When we unpacked, I put only maternity clothes in my dresser and all other clothes went into storage bins. Ever since Cy was born, I'd been slowing adding non-maternity clothes to my dresser as my body returns to some semblance of it's former shape. As a result, my drawers had gotten really out of hand. There was basically no organization left whatsoever - I was just putting items wherever they would fit, regardless of what other items occupied the drawer. Finally, it just got to be too much. I had Jason take the storage bins off of the top shelf and I commenced sorting my clothes into three piles: maternity clothes to be stored until pregnancy #2, clothes that currently fit or are very, very close to fitting, and clothes that are still quite a ways away from fitting, and may in fact never fit.

I got about 3/4 of the way through my project and then lost motivation. Of course, this is the point in the project when things still look pretty bad - most items have been put in their place, but there is a smattering of items from all categories scattered across the bed, as well as some things about which I'm just not sure what to do. I walked out to the living to complain to Jason about how much I just didn't want to do this project anymore. He asked me how far I had to go, and when I replied that I was almost finished he gave me a knowing smile and said "Right there is your problem. You never want to finish things."

And he's right. This is my special form of procrastination, and it applies to all areas of my life. I get very close to the end of something - a term paper, packing, a household project, cleaning, organizing, etc - and I just kind of give up. I used to spend nearly as much time writing the conclusion to an essay as I did writing the entire remainder of the essay, and I usually finished the paper with no time to spare, even if I had started it plenty early. Even letter writing and thank-you notes are affected by this. I don't know how many times I have written a thank-you note, even addressed the envelope, and then never sent it because I didn't have a stamp, or just didn't take the time to put a stamp on. Every time I tackle a project like the one tonight, I stop just short of finishing it. Even as I write this post, there are a few items that need to be hung up that are still sitting on my bed.

I have no real explanation for why I do this. Perhaps it is a result of my perfectionism. Maybe there's some kind of fear that as long as a project remains incomplete, I can still fix it. This makes sense with an essay or even with thank-you notes, but makes no real sense when it comes to cleaning and organization. Sometimes I think it's a product of my indecisiveness - things left at the end of a project are often things for which I don't have a clear place or solution, and therefore I just kind of give up. Who knows?

Ha! Even now, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how the heck to end this blog post. Hmm. I'll guess I'll just leave it at that...a weakness that I need to work on.

My newly organized drawers. Look, I completed a project!

Suprising things I've done in the past 10 years

I won't lie, I am struggling with NaBloPoMo today. I am very tired and lacking inspiration. So, here is a list of some thing that I've done over the past 10 years that have been surprising to my family/friends, me or both.

1. Choose to spend a summer living in the woods in New Jersey with a bunch of crazy kids for a laughably small amount of money. This included using a latrine, sleeping in a teepee with a mosquito net, and going on several overnight backing trips with 9 inner-city teenage girls.

2. Join my college's cross country team for two years in a row.

3. Live in South Africa for a semester.

4. Return to said New Jersey woods for two more summers.

5. Move to the Bronx so that I can work for above mentioned summer camp full time, also for a laughably small amount of money.

6. Continue living in the Bronx even when I had the choice to move somewhere else, and continue working for summer camp for a grand total of 5.5 years (8 total summers at said camp).

7. Get married before the age of 30.

8. Become a Mormon.

9. Buy a Minivan

10. Move across the country with no job and no plan

11. Quite my job to be a stay at home mom.

What have you done that surprised you and/or those you love?

Is he breathing?

I wrote about Cyrus's napping issues a few days ago, but was careful to only hint at his night sleep, because it has been, well, easy. And I am kind of a believer in the ability of one to jinx one's good fortune by talking about it while it is still happening. But I'm going to write about it just a little anyway and hope that the cosmic forces out there don't punish me.

From the beginning, Cy has slept his one long stretch during the night. Now, I use "long" loosely, as it was only three hours in the beginning. But that long stretch has lengthened progressively over the past few months, going from three to four to five hours. Up until two nights ago, his longest stretch ever was 7 hours, and that was the night after he got his vaccinations. He has routinely only slept about 5 to 6 hours at the longest.

On Thursday night, he went to sleep at 7pm, and at 4am Jason woke with a start to ask if I had heard him wake up. I hadn't. We were both suddenly hit with worry. Jason ran into his room to check if he was ok, and at first couldn't feel him breath. So he patted his head. Nothing. He did it again. Still nothing. Finally, Jason kind of jiggled his head, and - ahh releif - he moved. Twenty minutes later he woke up to eat. The next morning, we marvelled that he slept for nine and a half hours, but were sure it was a fluke. But then he did it again last night. And he's working on the same pattern tonight.

We've waited for this moment kind of since he was born. Ahh, to have to wake up only once a night! To get several hours of sleep in a row! Fantastic! And yet, at the risk of sounding like I'm complaining, because I'm really not, I never anticipated the stress that would come from having him essentially sleep through the night. When he wakes up every few hours, you kind of know that things are ok. Although I'm sure it's kind of false, there's a sense of security in that. It's kind of scary to have him sleep so soundly for so long. Just a few minutes ago, I went into his room to check if he was ok, and I too couldn't feel the rise and fall of his stomache. My heart dropped a little, even as I realized that he was probably just fine. I placed my hand in front of his face and sighed again with relief at the warm-cold-warm breath I felt as he breathed ever so softly in and out.

I realize now that the overwhelming fear that something will happen to him will never go away. Add that to the list of things I heard but didn't believe. After Jason and I lost our first pregnancy in the 10th week, we were understandably on edge when we got pregnant with Cy. After a brief scare with him in the 10th week, we saw his heartbeat again, and I remember asking my midwife in a shaky voice to reassure me that seeing the heartbeat at 10 weeks was a good sign. And her response stuck with me. She said: "Yes, that is a good sign. But Amber, that feeling that you're hoping will go away, that worry? It never does. Not even when they're 18." And although I knew she was probably right, I think somewhere in the back of my head I figured that once he was born, I would rest easy. I was wrong. Not only does that worry not go away, it seems to intensify with each passing day. And I'm quite sure that it will grow and stay with me until the day I die. Just a little side affect of loving another human being more than life itself.

Flashback Friday: The Subletter from Hell

All right, I'm not sure what the blogger protocol is for starting a post series and then interrupting it...but I'm going to do it anyway. It is, after all, Friday, and it's time for a Flashback!

The summer after Jason and I got married we both planned to work at the camp I ran in New Jersey, and therefor would be leaving our apartment empty for the summer. Now, I don't know how common the practice is in other parts of the country, but if you're a New Yorker and you plan to vacate your apartment for even a short time, let alone three months, you better believe you're going to try to capitalize on that and sublet it! So, that is what we set out to do. We posted on craigslist and even offered to pay utilities if the potential subletter was willing to keep our cat for the summer and take care of her (we took our dog with us to camp, but couldn't accommodate the cat).

New York is a pretty hot spot for subletters, and although the Bronx is slightly (or more than slightly) less appealing than most of the other boroughs (except Staten Island...no one wants to live there), we did get a fair number of responses. We showed the place to a few people, but it was a pretty long commute to Manhattan, so no one was interested so far. Then we met Kerry*. She was a law student with an internship in upstate New York and so our Bronx apartment was perfect for her. She came to take a look and immediately wanted the place. We were less sure about her. I couldn't put my finger on it, but there was just something about her that didn't sit right - she seemed a little awkward in kind of a hostile sort of way. Oh, if only I had heeded my gut instinct. But, it was very close to summer and we desperately needed a subletter, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and we decided to go ahead and sublet to her. I mean, she was law student, after all, how bad could she be?

Despite our hesitation, our good nature and assumption that others are also of good nature took over, and we didn't even write up a contract. We did ask for a security deposit, equal to one month's rent, and then asked for each of the three month's rent to be paid on the first of the month. We packed up our clothes and some of our more valuable items and left them with a friend, scrubbed the heck out of the apartment, and then left our cat and moved to New Jersey for the summer.

Fast forward to August 15th and we haven't received August's rent yet. I called her and e-mailed her several times, but got no response. By sometime around the 25th of August the kids had left camp, but I was staying for another week to close things up, and I still hadn't heard from her. I feared the worst. I had visions of scenes worthy of Law and Order running through my head, and at the very least I was worried about my cat. So I grabbed a friend and drove the 2 hours back to the city. I remember distinctly sitting in the car outside of my apartment, feeling nervous. What would I find? Would she be alive? Dead? Tied up? What other solution could there be to not getting rent and not hearing back from her? Or would I find my apartment emptied of all of my possessions?

Well, I still had a set of keys, so we went up to the door, knocked several times, and finally entered with my key. I cannot describe the scene before my eyes. I literally pushed the door open against a pile of clothes and shoes and the pile continued all the way down the long hallway to the bedroom. The living room was also a disaster. And then I saw my cat. My poor, street-rescued cat had more than doubled in size! She was so fat her head almost disappeared! Before I walk into the kitchen to further inspect the damage, Kerry popped her head out from the bedroom, clearly only half-dressed. And this was the weird part - she didn't say "Hang on a minute let me put some pants on" or "I'm just in the middle of getting dressed, give me a minute" she just proceeded to have a conversation with me while she poked her torso out of the bedroom. I told her I hadn't received rent and that I had been worried because I hadn't heard from her and all she said was, I sent a check, sorry. I was so taken aback by the state of the apartment and by her oddness, that my only response was "I'm taking the cat and going back to camp." My friend still laughs at that statement. It had a ring similar to "I'm taking my toys and going home!"

I went into the kitchen to grab the cat's food and discovered why my poor animal was so obese - there was container after container of cat food sitting on the counter. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet, 24/7. Now some cats might know when to say when, but not rescue kitty - oh no, she always ate in survival mode. If it was there, she consumed it just in case it wasn't there the next day. So she had been gorging herself on cat food for who knows how long! Then, we left and drove back to camp.

A week later, on Labor Day, Jason and I returned to our apartment for good at about 8:30pm, not sure what we would find. On first glance, it didn't seem to be too bad. But as we looked closer, we saw just how disgusting this law student was. Oh friends, it was ugly. Let's just say we cleaned for three hours before I felt Ok going to bed, and then spent the entire next day trying to get our apartment back. Words are good, but pictures are better. Below, please observe the grossness...

The Kitchen floor, before we even had a chance to sweep up the rest of the stuff on the floor. (No, that's not a real tomato, it's a timer, but still)

Our bed, with a mysterious, scary stain on my Egyptian Cotton mattress pad. That stain went through the mattress pad, the foam egg crate and the mattress! We threw the top two out and got a new mattress a few months later.

The buildup of cat hair on the area rug in the living room.

Where the cat box usually sat. It looked as though it had not been cleaned out once. Then we picked it up and saw this beneath it. Clearly, the cat litter that went over the edge of the box had not been swept up. It took me over thirty minutes to clean this 2 square feet of tile!

I wish this was all. There was pot ash on the coffee table, strange stains on the wood floor that took off a few layers of finish, she had taken our laundry basket and our bathmat, had gotten bleach on one of towels, left an air conditioning unit on a windowsill and turned it pink with water damage, and had left various sundry clothing items, books and jewelry. And it didn't stop there. We continued to find evidence of her damage and presence long after she left. Part of the deal was that we paid utilities. When we got the electric bill for the month of August, it was $200 more than it had ever been, due to the running of the air conditioning unit 24/7. When we got our cable bill, she had ordered pornos on our TV.

Now for the worst part. Remember that last month's rent that I never received? Well, I never received it...ever. I e-mailed and e-mailed and called. Her number had been discontinued and she never responded to my e-mails. We had her security deposit, but there's no way she would have gotten that back after the damage she left, and we still ended up losing money because of the things we had to replace. She also hadn't returned our keys, which started to freak me out. I finally got kind of urgent in my e-mails regarding the keys. A few days later, the keys showed up in several layers of envelope, with no return address.

Some of my friends and family wanted us to pursue her, try to get her to pay her last month's rent. But honestly, I was just so sick of the whole thing and was so glad to be done with it that I just wanted to close that chapter and forget about her. Annoyingly, we continued to get mail for her for several months, and even found an old package addressed to her when we were packing up to leave, nearly three years later! She just would not be forgotten...

We had all kinds of ideas about what we would do differently the following summer - collecting the whole summer's rent up front, drawing up a contract, having a friend in the city just drop by every now and again, trust our gut instinct, etc. However, Jason ended up getting a job he couldn't and didn't want to leave for the summer, so we never had to deal with that again. Which is good, because I'm not sure I would have had the stomach for it anyway!

* Name has been changed to protect the guilty.

My Cloth Diapering Story: Part 1

*I started out writing this post as a review of the cloth diapers we use, but as I started to write I realized that it might be helpful for someone out there to here about my reasoning and process in choosing cloth diapers.

Before Cyrus was born, Jason and I talked at length about whether to use disposable or cloth diapers. Throwing away all those disposable diapers just didn't sit well with us, not to mention the chemicals that are in most of the resonably-priced disposables. When I was doing research, I had a hard time finding good information on cloth diapering options and costs, so I'm providing my account for anyone else who might be interested.

So initially, we decided to use a diaper service. When we got to Portland, I looked into Tidee Didee, the only diaper service in the Portland area, as far as I could tell. Well, as environmentally concious as I'd like to be, I will admit that my wallet talks first, and the diaper service was going to cost close to $1,000 for one year! Yikes!

However, we were still really committed to using cloth diapers, so I started exploring other options - mainly, buying a stash of cloth diapers and laundering them myself. But I was worried about the extra work load, the mess and the excess water I would have to use to wash them, not to mention to cost of purchasing all those diapers. So, as is my nature, I dove into researching cloth diapers. I stumbled across a mail-order store located here in Portland that specializes in cloth diapers called Babyworks. Their catalog had tons of information and their salespeople were extremely helpful over the phone, spending over 20 minutes answering my questions before I had even decided to purchase from them. Not only that, but their return policy is amazing - 30 day returns, even if you've used and washed the diapers! They figure you can't tell if they work for you unless you try them. Impressive!

I discovered that there are many options - prefolds with covers, all-in ones, pocket diapers, one-size pocket daipers (and I'm sure I'm leaving a few out). As far as I could tell, the big downfalls with most of the diapering systems were 1) you had to buy them in multiple sizes as your child grew, adding cost and 2) you had to soak them in a big pail, which could get messy.

Enter the one-size pocket diaper. The idea is that the diapers are adjustable through a system of elastic and buttons or velcro and snaps, depending on the brand, and can therefore be used for babies 7lbs to 35 lbs - basically the whole diapering life of an average sized child. This means buying one set to get you through 2+ years of diapering! There are two brands of one size pocket diapers - Fuzzibunz and Bum Genius. Bum Genius uses velcro and snaps, while Fuzzibunz uses elastic and buttons to adjust the size. The Fuzzibunz product is slightly newer on the market.

Well, after some careful math, I realized that purchasing 24 pocket one-size diapers would be cheaper than buying the varying sizes of any of the other diapering systems. After additional research, I decided on the Fuzzibunz over the Bum Genius because it seemed that the Velcro closures on the Bum Genius would likely wear out faster than the snap closures on the Fuzzibunz.

My other issue was the mess. Babyworks recommended a toilet sprayer, a handy little sprayer that attaches to the back of your toilet, allowing you to clean off your dirty diapers before putting them in the hamper without getting your hands dirty. (Let me just add here that the thing works like a power-washer! Even when we've left poopy diapers until the end of the day, they spray off almost completely clean.) And, Fuzzibunz doesn't want you to soak the diapers in a pail, so there went that issue!

Once we had decided to go with cloth diapers, I realized that we would need some other supplies as well. We decided to use reusable wipes (basically just really plush washclothes) instead of disposable wipes, mainly because of cost, so we bought 32 of them. We also bought the diaper sprayer, some flushable diaper liners for when we're out and about, a "dirty duds bag" for the same reason, a washable diaper hamper, and a bottle of diaper detergent that will last us at least 2 years. Now, are you ready for the total cost of all of these supplies, including the 24 diapers?

We spent just under $600 for all of our diapering supplies, which will likely last us until Cy is out of diapers. Now, compared to the $1,000 a year for a diaper service, which doesn't even include some of the things we would have bought anyway, that's at least a $1,400 savings - more if he's in diapers for longer! And, there is a good chance that we can reuse the diapers and some of the other supplies with subsequent children. This might sound good in theory, but does it all work in reality? In Part 2 I'll give you my review of Fuzzibunz diapers and the whole cloth diapering process, as it's gone so far.