Our first day cloth diapering

They finally made it! The diaper stash and accessories have arrived! Im soooo excited! We have the 12 fuzzibunz diapers, 1 washable swim diaper, 24 washable wipes, 1 laundry bag, 2 wet bags, the potty sprayer, and a little sample of detergent. It took Jim maybe 10 mins to hook up the potty sprayer. Its really powerful and I cant wait to use it for the first time. Though when i tried it out I was wearing zoey in my sling and shot her with it....opps....note to self squirt with nozzle facing away from you!

The diapers were easy enough, though sizing the elastic wasnt easy and im not looking forward to doing the rest. my mom did come over and help me with the sizing so that helped. The diapers each came with 2 liners, a tiny newborn small one, and a med large for when she gets bigger. They also came with an easy to replace elastic sizer. If replacing is like sizing, it may take a little bit, so hopefully they wear fine. The snaps to size the diapers are great, though its taking a bit of trial and error to get them right on zoey, she has a tiny skinny waist and chubby little thighs. It does take a minute to snap but its not that bad. With disposables I had to tape them a couple times on before it was just right, these i know right what snaps to click. They are also hard to unsnap for a child which is great! Hopefully she wont learn to pull them off for a long long time :)

We also got a swim diaper. We are going to a water park on new years day and vacation in february so she needs it to swim like 4 times...lol. then we can get another couple ones for the summer since she will be much bigger and will be in the pool with me every day! I loooooove our inground  pool. It was the only thing that saved me during the hot summer and being gigantic and pregnant. Though i did get my butt stuck in a tube a couple times and had to wait till jim came out to rescue me...haha! But back to the diaper, it says to had wash which i can handle but it says the colors may run if it gets wet, are you kidding me its a swim diaper. So i think ill have to write to site and see if thats true cause then its going back. I even paid more to have the snap kind, not the velcro kind so it doesnt stick to my bathing suit. I have a gorgeous juicy couture swim dress, the one and only bathing suit ive ever really really loved. (though i did think the pregnancy swim suits werent bad with lots of belly room so it was cute being fat in one...lol) but its so pretty and wasnt cheap, but you cant do anything in it. like no hot tubs or anything so you have to be really selective where you wear it. so having a velcro diaper stick to me was not in the cards! ick!This is by nooooo means what i look like it it, but its stinking adorable! mine is a darker maroon color.

Thought id post some pics of christmas decorating. its so cute to see zoey just stare at the tree. :)

Our little Zoeys first thanksgiving

Our little zoey had a wonderful thanksgiving. Though I was a bad mom and forgot my camera! ugh! But I hosted another thanksgiving at my house last night, so I will put up some pics when i can.

Black friday was good, added to my stash. i ordered another mac and cheese,spearmint, butter-cream and grape fuzzi buns. I also got some samples of bumgenius detergent, also got CJ's BUTTer Original Diaper Cream in coconut lime which im soooo excited to try, but i hope she never gets a diaper rash. Zoey is 12 weeks tomorrow and has yet to have a diaper rash, even in disposables. The diapers are out for delivery today and im dying with anticipation. im sitting at the dinning room table with a clear view, waiting patiently. I already cleaned the house decorated for christmas, so writing this will stop me from pacing back and forth watching out of the bay window.

Jim picked up a bunch of tools from lowes on black friday, love having a handy husband :) and they are going to come in extra handy these next couple weeks. Jim is putting up walls in the basement.  we have a large basement with 2 dogs, a great dane and black lab. they have a doggy door to the back yard and a twin bed for the dane and a couch for the lab. they live pretty stinking well. haha! but the washer and dryer are down there and if i have to wash more often i want to just run down with out having to entertain them. plus jims man cave of a garage is packed to the top with stuff. We have a pool table, air hockey and ping ping table out there. Plus the ride on mower and bagger and all the patio and pool furniture. Plus his tools, we have a pretty large garage but its getting tight. I go out there and turn right back around. haha! So he will be building an area for the air hockey and ping pong and his gym equipment. so that frees up a lot of garage space. plus makes a nice area for my laundry and maybe a play room in a couple years. We have a laundry shoot but i cant use it since the dogs will walk by and take the clothes out back, cant tell you how many times i had to go collect dirty underwear off my back yard, thank goodness we have a 6 foot privacy fence. lol!

I decorated the house for christmas this morning and i love it! I really have a thing for zebra print, my house is covered in it. and so its only fitting to have that for my christmas. We have a white tree with black, pink, silver and zebra. I mean i dont know anyone else who has white feather boas and black roses decorating their christmas :)

diapers STILL arent here....this is killllllling me! Ill write more when i get them

I prefer my grocerys in paper and plastic, not my baby

Well Ive decided to go the cloth diapering route. Zoey just started fitting into size one diapers, luckily we were given a bunch for her baby shower. But we did have to buy probably 10-15 packs of newborn for my mini. But I just cant stand to think of how many diapers we will have to buy and just toss. Id love to say im trying to save the earth, but quite frankly its cause i love saving money. im not a cheap skate but hate to toss it away when there is plenty i can do to save it.  (plus have you SEEN the new cloth diapers, they are beyond adorable)

Cloth diaper savings calculator  - check out what you will be saving :)

So give or take it will take us about 18 weeks to break even and after that were smooth sailing, and never have to buy a diaper for our baby(s) again. Seeings that most people spend about 1-3k on diapering 1 child depending on brand and how long to potty train, the $250 start up wasnt hard to swallow. We are going to be aiming for 3 children but are open to more. So we can pass along to her future siblings. Since Im only working part time now, and do laundry daily, this shouldnt be much of a problem. Though I will have to fight my great dane an extra time a day to get to the washer. I really thought it would be a battle to win my hubby over to the idea, but he was all for it. I think i got him with the its cheaper and less trash to lug down our long driveway line...lol. Im not sure how the rest of the family will feel, but really they have come so far, hopefully it shouldnt be a problem. My one brother and I were raised on old school cloth and we turned out fine, but our mom did diaper the other 3 with disposables... having 10 straight years with kids in diapers!eeks! But they really have come such a long way since then Im happy to hear :)

So we decided to go for the FuzziBunz brand one size fits all, which is fabulous! So they will fit from a newborn up until potty training. Which did i forget to mention does go quicker because they can feel they are wet before its absorbed. :)

I ordered 12 in a rainbow of colors butter cream, choco truffle, grape, light it up blue, mac n cheese, spearmint, tootie fruitie, cotton candy, crushed berries, watermelon and 2 mint.

Arent they adorable? During the summer we wont even have to bother with a diaper cover when she wears her little dresses, or even *gasp* she can run around just in her diaper and look stinking cute. Not even mentioning her photos will be cuter without some ugly disposable diaper.

We also ordered 2 Diaper tire wet bags for holding diapers on the go and a diaper pail liner to hold them. We also got a diaper sprayer so we can just rinse away the messes without touching them or the old fashioned swish in the toliet....ick...

So I cant cant wait to get them in the mail, probably next week, which they better cause if not shes gonna be in sad shape since im not buying any more diapers...lol... Woo Hoo!!!!

Thanks for the mammeries

Ok now onto the current breast feeding situation. It has since improved I am happy to say :)

My sweet zoey jane has yet to fully latch correctly but she is doing much better. With her getting bigger it has really seemed to help. We are using the shield maybe half the time now. As much as I long to have her skin to skin with me, I really would never have been able to make it this far without it.

She is 11 weeks old now and has been sleeping through the night since maybe 8 weeks which has been more then a blessing for this sleepy mama. She sleeps from about 1130 to 10 the next morning. I still have to wake up and pump but thats ok with me.

Supply is up with the help of motilium, a prescription for stomach conditions, and milk supply. Its been more then a blessing for me. Ive struggled with stomach problems since I was in 8th grade. Not only has it fixed my stomach issues milk production is up. Ive increased to about 4-5 oz. when pumping, so its not up completely but its better then empty :)  Zoey does get supplements of formula when I have to. But I really try not to, thus why I wake up at 430 every morning to pump extra, while the princess is still sleeping. Jim just ordered me some more so Im going to try increasing the dose and see where that gets us. Until then we have been incredibly fortunate to have a milk gift from my aunt whos baby is no longer able to have breast milk. There is no greater gift then that, and for that I will forever be thankful. I highly recommend having a pregnancy with family due the same time as you :)

This journey of breastfeeding has been so much more difficult than i could have ever imagined. They are right it does not come naturally, it takes a lot of dedication and work and plenty of blood sweat and tears. And i just marvel at women who nurse exclusively. While its hard for me to accept that formula is not poison, I know that my daughters nutrition is more important then my hang ups. Im just thankful for every tiny drop im able to provide her, no matter how many times i have to wake up and pump. sleep is over rated anyway.

past breastfeeding struggles

To catch up to this point, this is some of my earlier breast feeding struggles...

 ugh! im so frustrated with the breastfeeding.

it all started in the hosp. zoey wouldnt latch on so the lactation consultants and nurses had me on the nipple shield, which is used for inverted nipples, which i dont have. she really wanted nothing to do with nursing and just slept and we had to keep waking her up. they had me trying to nurse for 30 mins at a time every 2 hours with this stupid shield. my nipples were raw and started bleeding. the day we left they said she was jaundice and had us return for her tests everyday for almost a week. meanwhile she had brick stains in her diaper at this point, which is dehydration. so the pediatrician was concerned and said after every feeding i had to supplement her with the formula and we had to keep going back for weigh ins. she made her weigh in and i told her i was having trouble and she said just to keep trying. but she didnt want me nursing so long so often because she was comfort sucking and causing me pain.

so by now my nipples are beyond hurt and i swear i cried more then she did. so i decided i was going to pump. i had very little milk. looked up nipple shield online and it said yea it will lesson the supply because im not being stimulated enough.

so the supplementation continues, i try the herb fenugreek to help increase supply to not find it much help. it makes me smell like syrup and sweat like a man. pumping is at 2 oz a session now. trying to wean off the shield, efforts are met with screaming.

 but now thats not enough. she needs more, way more, she was able to consume 8 oz without vomiting, in this tiny little body. i felt like a horrible mom who cant make enough. but shes not suppose to have that much yet, so shes still comfort sucking, which i now desperately need her to do to me so i can have a supply.

so currently she is off the shield, thank goodness. but she still cant latch right. i nurse her for around 20 mins total now and then give her a pacifier and she seems content. my nipple hurts still and comes out of her mouth looking like a new tube of lipstick, which means shes not taking it far enough in. ive been feeding all hours of the day and night and met with screams of who knows what. either hunger or comfort me.

i just feel like i was doomed from the beginning. it was labor day weekend when we were there and i felt like everyone had a place to be and didnt want to take time to really sit there and help us. they just gave me the shield and that was that. i kinda feel the dr is also more for formula anyway. or maybe not educated enough in breastfeeding. i just feel like every time i talk to her she pushes me to the bottle. maybe she just senses my frustration. and its a shame cause i really like her. my mom has tried to help me, she nursed, and she cant get her to latch on me either. (do you have any idea how many peoples hands of been on my nipple shoving it in zoeys mouth...lol)

i know that no pump can get out what a baby can, but clearly my baby cant either...ugh... but i currently can only get 1.5 out of my left and barely a .5 out of the right. I want to go on medication for increase supply but feel like more nursing correctly is the better way to go, i just hope its not too late. but with work coming up in 2 weeks i dont have much time to start getting a system down and some tiny supply for the freezer.

hopefully i can get a little more insight tomorrow from the dr. and zoey starts catching on. i just need her to open alittle wider. i just feel like this is a losing battle but i so desperately want her solely on breast milk. but she will be eating solids before we get the hang of this...sighs...

any insight is more then welcomed.

Humble beginnings

Well finally decided I should begin a blog about my adventures, struggles and many blessings of being a newly wed and newly mom :) But first a little bit about me and how I got to this fabulous point in my life :)

Im 26 years old and was married on September 26, 2010 to the love of my life to my tall dark and handsome husband James. We started dating in June 2005 and plan on living happily ever after with many little ones in tow


Our wedding...

My Pregnancy and delivery

To some up my pregnancy in some FAQs...

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? yes!!
2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? yes, for only 3 months :)
3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? i was ecstatic! jim was a little nervous
4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? nada
5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? 26
6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT?  well, since we were trying to have a baby waiting to test was the longest 2 weeks of my life i swore up and down i was pregnant, i tested and got a negative and was devastated. i was a wreck, thats all I wanted for christmas. after a miserable and exhausting  christmas and new years, on january 2nd I made Jim drive me to walmart in the middle of the night for a test, and sure enough +
7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? jim and our family
8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX?  no way! it was soooo much fun to not have any idea. but then again after delivery i was told it was a boy and shes a girl...lol...not sure how you mix that up...haha
9. DUE DATE?  9-5-11 was my first due date, but during the first visit they couldnt find the baby so they did an ultra sound and found her. but they decided to move my due date to 9-18, but i knew they were wrong, but all the sizes matched up with her time after time. well guess who made her appearance right when i said she would...lol
10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? yup for 7 months and heart burn like i was on fire!
11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? big macs and i hadnt had mcdonalds in prob 5-6 years and havent since. and hard boiled eggs
12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? almost everything...but i was a house cleaning maniac.
 13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? Girl
14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? i wanted a girl soooo bad but swore i was having a boy.
15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? i think i peaked around 18 lbs!!! 1 week 1 day i was back to normal and today 10 weeks after im less then where i started, what a diet!
16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? yes...a huge baby q pool party :)
17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? it was at my house so i knew, i loooove planning parties
18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? not till the end when they thought shed get stuck and to do a c section. im so glad i didnt she was so tiny
19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? new virtua Hospital, which is fabulous
20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 19 hours, pushed 45 mins
21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? jim. he went to work and i had a dream with horrible pain and woke up, tried to waddle and go to the bathroom, but stood up and my water broke. i called him in a panic and he had to take a taxi to get home in time. he drove like a mad man...lol
22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? jim, my mom and rachel
23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? natural
24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? epidural baby, i wasnt winning any mommy of the year award that day
25. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 6lbs 13 oz
26. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? 2 days or 2 weeks early... september 3rd 2011
27. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Zoey Jane
28. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 10 weeks old