Hello! I'm Michelle. Mom of one, Army wife and pseudo-SAHM. (I was
very lucky to have a part-time babysitting job fall into my lap shortly
after my son was born. Twice a week, I get to spend the day with two
other very awesome kids all while spending time with my son.)
So, why "Fueled by Fluff"?
Don't
get me wrong, I wake up every morning to my adorable, happy son and my
loving husband. However, over the last 9 months, I have developed a
debilitating addiction.
Cloth diapers. Fluff, if you will.
I
wake up excited to change G's diaper, to do diaper laundry, to scour
the internet for new prints and new brands of diapers. It is sick,
really.
It all started before G was born. I happened
across a post on a military spouse forum I frequent, showing a modern
cloth diaper. This was not at all what I was expecting. The term
"cloth diapering" used to conjure up visions of pins, and pails and
boring white rectangles of fabric. Not all the pretty, new, fluffy
objects I had just laid my eyes on.
I started talking
fluff with my husband. At first, he amused me and listened as I talked
for hours about this new, wonderful thing I had happened upon. From
January until March, I consumed as much information as I could and would
share everything I learned that day with my husband over dinner every
night. Eventually, he broke the news that he would not be interested in
cloth diapering. Reality set in and I rationalized that I would not
want to deal with spraying poop and I already dislike laundry. Why
would I add 3-4 extra loads a week? Disposables would be the way to go.
On
June 4th, 2012 at midnight, I went into labor. I wasn't even sure it
was real. I had been having false labor for the last two weeks. At 6 am
on the June 5th, I got up to empty my sorry-excuse-for-a-bladder and my
water broke. Immediately, the contractions intensified in pain and
frequency. 4-5 minutes apart and definitely real. After yelling for my
husband to wake up for about 15 minutes, I got up, and...baby poop! My
waters were heavily meconium stained, so straight to the hospital we
went. By the time I made it to the hospital, my contractions were 2-3
minutes apart. I was so sure that our baby would be here in an hour or
two. So wrong...
I was 1cm dilated. And still having
contractions 2-3 minutes apart. I was hooked up to an internal fetal
monitor and had more tubes coming out of my nether regions than I knew
what to do with. Oh, and did I mention the baby poop. SO MUCH BABY
POOP. At 5:21 pm, out popped a baby, a boy!! (We had opted not to find
out beforehand.) As my husband "followed that baby" (like he was instructed to do
weeks before), I laid in the hospital bed, casually holding a
conversation with my OB, not really grasping what had just happened. I
remember not allowing myself to get excited until after the NICU team
that had been assembled checked him to make sure he had not aspirated
any meconium. Finally, just after 6pm, I was able to hold my healthy,
little man. The healthy, little man who pooped inside of me.
(Can you tell how grossed out I was by all this baby poop already?) I
was already happy with the decision to go with disposables.
Flash forward to August...
Have
I mentioned how much I hate baby poop? I really do. You know what I
hate even more? Blow outs! I had no clue what a blow out was until
about two weeks after G was born. In one day, his disposable
diaper seemingly exploded up his back and down his legs three times.
THREE. In ONE day. This became a nearly daily occurrence. Baby poop
on the baby, baby poop on his clothes, baby poop on ME! I was so done.
Not to mention, my son would go through a disposable
every half hour to hour because he hates being wet. Sleeping at night,
even fore a couple of hours at a time, was a thing of the past. Baby
pees, baby screams, mommy cries...this was my new life.
So, I
lured my husband into our local cloth diaper store under the guise that I
was just looking to get a cloth swim diaper so we could get the baby in
the pool while visiting with friends. Immediately upon walking in, I
made sure to let the owner know "we don't cloth diaper." While looking
around, I casually pointed out the wall of BumGenius diapers. "Oh, see
those? Those are the cloth diapers we had talked about, " I told my
husband. As I continued to look around, I noticed that he was
investigating the BGs. (He won't admit it, but he had fun checking
everything out that day. AND...I walked out with a Boba 3g as
well...but no CDs this time. I had to let the idea sink in.)
Two
weeks later, we were near the CD store again and HE suggested we go
check it out. Maybe see if we can get something for G for overnight.
(We still had not been sleeping because our little guy still could not
stan being wet in a disposable.) We walked in and said we were looking into trying something overnight. (The owner remembered us... "Weren't you the couple that came in a few weeks ago that 'don't cloth diaper?'") I swore pockets were the way to go.
He liked the idea of AIOs. We walked out with a few different
types/brands that day and...well... the rest is history.
Until, you know, I realized I needed MORE...
