All Things Diapers - Fuzzibunz Review

I always liked the idea of cloth diapers - good for the environment, good for your baby and most of all, good for your wallet.

When I was pregnant with Brendan I talked with my sister in law a lot about cloth diapers (CD) and kept them in the back of my mind.

At my baby shower, my sister gave me several different kinds of CD to try and then figure out from there which I would like the best.

After about a week of Brendan being born and going through roughly over 100 disposable diapers...I was ready to make the switch.

I had found and visited a CD store while I was pregnant because I found out they were only 20 minutes from my house! After I had my baby I went back to "All Things Diapers" with Kinsor, my sister in law, and bought some supplies so I could start using cloth!
One of the diapers I bought at their store was a Fuzzibunz One Size Pocket Diaper. Besides the fact that it came in TONS of fun colors, Martin (store owner) explained that they are less bulky than other snap one size diapers because they have the elastic instead of 14 billion snaps on the front of the diaper. I thought I'd give it a shot!

I am now in LOVE with this diaper. It is one of my favorite One Size Pocket Diapers because it gets nice and tiny for Brendan's body! So far I haven't had any leaks and I don't anticipate getting any. The leg openings fit so well and it is nice and snug at the waist. I bought it in "chocolate truffle" color, but there are 14 fun colors to choose from!

Martin, from All Things Diapers, has been very helpful so far and I know he will continue to be. The other great thing about their store, is that they ship free to residents of Minnesota! So I can do CD shopping from the comfort of my home in my PJs!

Check them out on Facebook!

Splenda Zucchini Bread

On Tuesday a friend blessed us by bringing us a Taco Dinner. Along with the dinner she had some raw veggies and a fresh zucchini from her dad's garden. I had never had a whole zucchini before, ever, in my life.
I was all set to give it to our neighbors and then I thought "Hey! I should try making bread!"

I was so proud of myself for attempting this task, that I photo documented the process.




Ta-Da! It actually turned out and to top it off...it tastes good too!

Recipe Found Here

Brendan David's Birth Story

I had been having sporadic contractions all weekend but nothing even close to consistent.
Sunday morning (July 24^th) Dave and I went to church, came home for lunch and did some yard work. Around 5:30 I had a noticeably different contraction and decided to see if another one like that would come again. From 5:30-6:30pm I had 4 contractions so I decided to tell Dave that I noticed them.
He suggested we play our new Super Scrabble game, so we did. As time progressed I would take laps around the kitchen and living room when it wasn’t my turn. Dave would say “what’cha doin’?” and I’d say “oh, I just am going to go look at something over here!”

Around 8:30pm they were 7-10minutes apart and we figured they weren’t going away. So Dave started packing his hospital bag and I decided the kitchen needed to be cleaned if we were going to be leaving for the hospital. He packed while I cleaned and loaded the dishwasher and then I got Brendan and my bags ready. Dave finally suggested we try and sleep in case we have a long night. At around 9:30 we laid down and I would ALMOST be asleep and a contraction would hit and I couldn’t lay still. I had to get up out of bed. It felt best to walk/stomp around so that is what I did. Also during the evening I showered at two different times. That felt good too.

Around 10:30 they were 5 minutes apart so I decided to call my midwife. She said to call back when they are 2-3 minutes apart or when I feel that I MUST go to the hospital. She figured it would be a couple hours more. An hour later at 11:30 they were 2-3 minutes apart and I told Dave I wanted to get ready and leave for the hospital. We called the midwife and told her we’d be leaving the house around midnight.
The drive to the hospital was the worst part of all. I HATED laying flat. I was also very hot. I remember asking Dave to turn the air on high – I think he was freezing!

When we got to the hospital we quickly unloaded our bags and made our way in. I had to stop near the entrance for a contraction. They were now 2 minutes apart. I had decided back when we had our tour that I was going to take the stairs up to the birthing center and not the elevator. So as soon as my last contraction finished, I said “Ok, let’s hurry before I have another one.” We made it up to the birthing center just in time for me to have another contraction.

I got into the admitting room and changed and they checked my cervix. This was the first time I had ever been checked. It didn’t hurt like I thought it might and that is when I got very surprising news…”You’re 6 cm dilated!” I was so excited; I had gotten to a 6 all by myself, at home!
They got me right to a room and I walked/stomped/danced all the way over to the room and once I was in the room I continued.

The midwife said I could labor in the tub a while and I liked the sound of that. It felt very nice, but we noticed it was slowing down my contractions and I did not want that, so I got out.

I quickly progressed to 8cm and then 9cm. At 9cm my midwife said “This baby is going to be here so soon! Lets break your water and that should finish up your dilation and you can get this baby out!”
I agreed and that put me to a 9.5 with just a little bit of my cervix left.

I started trembling and shaking and vomiting a lot. Dave was an awesome coach who brought me ice water and my dried fruit snacks for energy. He reminded me that these were all signs of “Transition” that we learned in our Bradley classes and that meant I was almost ready to push Brendan out! Though it was hurting, I was getting very excited.

At this point things took a terrible turn for the worse and for some reason my midwife stopped supporting me and started rushing me. She was bothered by the fact that I had been at 9.5 cm for several hours. She kept talking to me negatively and it was always when I was in the middle of a contraction. I would hold up my finger to “shush” her or just say “just a second please”. That didn’t work.
Dave and I had learned from class that it was completely normal to sometimes stay at certain dilation for a few hours; this was called the “Natural Alignment Plateau”. We were staying positive that it takes time for the baby to make his way down and get in the right position. We had learned that even if I was not fully dilated, sometimes just a few practice pushes could finish moving my cervix out of the way. We had even learned the right pushing positions for that to be successful. But there was no convincing our midwife.

After a while the midwife shows up with the on-duty hospital OB. The OB pulls up a stool and starts rattling on about C-sections and how that I was basically put on a clock and if I didn’t have this baby in the next couple hours, I would need surgery. I was livid. I didn’t even look at the OB, I was glaring at my midwife. I could not believe she blindsided me like that. I was 9.5cm and ready to push my baby out and they were threatening me with a C-section…unbelievable! They were acting as if I’d been at 2cm for 15 hours!

I’d like to add in at this point in the story that we had two WONDERFUL nurses, whom we couldn’t have done this without. If Dave and I hadn’t been laboring naturally for 15 hours and could have had the state of mind, I would have looked at my midwife and said “You’re fired, get out of my room.” I am confident if I would have done that, the nurses and Dave and I could have been just dandy having the baby with the 4 of us and the following scariness would never have happened.

We had learned in Bradley class that when a woman reaches the “Pushing stage” the contractions will become stronger, but they will be more spaced out to give time to rest in between pushing. Makes sense, right? (God designed our bodies so awesome!)
Apparently my midwife never learned that. She was again nagging about how my contractions had really spaced far apart and this baby was “never going to come out at this rate”. She said “I think your body is just really tired and you should get Pitocin and an Epidural”.
Had she fallen completely off her rocker?! My whole goal was a NATURAL birth! I had been laboring NATURALLY for 15+ hours and I was doing GREAT. I told her “I am not tired, I do not want drugs”.
She brought up the clock again and basically said “we either need to speed these contractions up, or you might have to get a C-section”. UGH! The nerve!

I was bound and determined to NOT be cut open so in my desperation, I agreed to the pitocin and an epi.
That was hell.
Who gives a woman at 9.5cm, ready to be pushing, pitocin?! Those were the WORST contractions ever and to top it off, I had to lay flat till the epidural had taken effect. Laying flat is the worst position to ever be in to birth a child, for the record.

I had had enough, I asked if I could either get the squat bar or get on all fours on the bed and they said “Normally women can’t feel their legs with the epi.” I said “I can feel them enough; I want to be on all fours.” So I had them help me flip over on the bed and I got on all fours. I was READY to push. I was completely and utterly feeling the uncontrollable desire to push.
My midwife comes in the room and says “you aren’t quite a 10 yet. You can’t push, you have to just try and relax. Let’s give you more epi.”
I said “NO! I do not want MORE drugs, I will breathe through the contractions, and I won’t push.”
So for a good hour I resisted pushing my beautiful baby boy out, it was horrible. He was READY to come out. My body was ready to push him out and they wouldn’t let me. I even think our two nurses were disagreeing with the midwife; they had checked me and thought I could push. But when the midwife checked, she just sighed, frowned and said “not yet”.

FINALLY she said I could push and for some reason made me get onto my back again. I was so utterly exhausted that I didn’t have the mindset to contest.
I pushed for maybe 30 minutes while Dave cheered me on. Soon my son was out! I finally could meet him! Dave reminded them quickly we wanted to delay cutting the cord and that is when we heard the scary words “we have to cut it right now, there is meconium and he isn’t responding how we’d like.”

Before we knew it a team of 15 NICU people were in the room attending to Brendan and I hadn’t even seen him yet! I told Dave to follow them to the nursery. Brendan had a one minute APGAR of 1 but Praise the Lord his 5 minute APGAR was back at an 8.

When Dave returned to the room with our son, he saw that I was being attended to by 4 people. Apparently I was bleeding a lot and had quite badly torn. (No duh, I was pushing against gravity on my back!)
Poor Dave was so scared and worried. It took them over an hour to stitch me up and that was worse than my 20 hours of natural labor. I wanted it to be over so bad! I think it was worse because the epidural had worn away.

They finally finished and I was able to hold my son. He was breathtaking! I was bawling and I couldn’t believe I had done it! I was so happy! He even started breastfeeding right away!

Recovery has been rough. I’ve had the energy, but the stitches have held me back from doing my daily routines. It has also been emotionally taxing. Thinking on everything that happened I realized the hospital OB and my midwife (who failed me when I needed her most) put me and my son in great risk. All because they didn’t allow my body to do what it knew how, and was designed to do.
I was ready to push and because they wouldn’t let me, it put undue stress on Brendan, which probably caused him to poop, which caused him to be non-responsive when he came out. They are just lucky God was taking good care of him or they would be in huge trouble.

I am so thankful for a healthy baby boy and a healthy me. But it wasn’t any credit to the hospital or my midwife. It is all thanks to God who watched over us in the midwife’s moments of stupidity, my wonderful supportive husband/coach and our two great nurses!

Brendan’s birthday: July 25, 2011 (39 weeks 6 days) 1:02pm

weight: 7lbs 13oz.
length: 20.5 inches