Ready, Set, Go!

Surviving Infertility Infertility,

I might be kicking myself later for asking for advice on such debatable topics, but oh well. Nowadays, I cannot make a decision to save my life so here goes nothing…

  1. Experiences with cloth diapering? I have been reading up on it & I am very interested in trying this method out. It does not gross me out. I will be staying home with baby for quite some time (no daycare), and feel I could take the time to wash more than if I had to head back to work. In addition, being off work, I’d like to save financially if possible, and I also like the idea of chemical free materials (yes, I know there are disposables that are organic too). I have already purchased a few packs of disposable diapers-Swaddlers, Seventh Generation, and the Honest Company. As of now, I only registered for cloth diapers since I already have disposables. After reading reviews, I chose the Kanga Baby and Bum Genius cloth brands. The plan is to try various things out and see which works best for our little man, but it would be nice to hear some experiences from you all with this old school cloth method.
  2. I am having difficulty deciding how to handle our baby shower invites. Let me explain. I am the type of person who would rather be invited to an event and decline than not be invited at all. However, I am not sure if everyone is like this. I have been told that some people take offense when invited if you are not very close to them (like you are trying to get a gift, which would surely not be our intention at all). This is where my dilemma comes in. So many people that I work with have followed this blog and journey from the start. In some cases, I had never talked to these individuals on a personal basis until they showed interest in our story. One of the reasons I love this blog being public is because it has created many wonderful relationships for me that may have not existed otherwise. I am so thankful for the supportive community I have gotten to know. And I would like to invite many of these people, but I dont want them to find it odd if I do. On the other hand, I dont want them to be offended if I dont either. If that makes ANY sense. Soooo…which is better? Invite or not invite? My head hurts just from trying to explain that lol.
  3. I cant even remember #3 now 🙄
  4. I just remembered…birth plan or no birth plan? What about for a c-section? Please share why you feel the way you do! 

35 thoughts on “Ready, Set, Go!”

  1. I will only speak to the birth plan. I have no experience with cloth diapering, and my family situation hindered my baby showers.
    When my Dr asked me if I had a birth plan, my answer was simply “hand me a healthy baby”. Whatever that meant. I ended up having a csection. Because I wasn’t hell bent against it, it didn’t wreck my experience. If that makes sense. I tried so hard, for so long to just have a baby, I was not going to get caught up in a birth plan that may very well fall apart. And at 38 weeks, with gestational diabetes, and breech baby, we scheduled a csection and it was great. It is my birth story. My recovery seemed fine, as I have nothing else to compare it to.
    Now, I’m pregnant again, and I’ll have another csection. I’m not pushing the envelope to have a vbac, I just want a healthy baby.
    That’s my opinion on that. Lol.
    I don’t think seeking out a scheduled csection is “ok”, but I HATE the negativity that surrounds them. They are ok! No shame.

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  2. As an old mother and grandmother, I was going to do,cloth with my first daughter 45 years ago. It lasted about 2 weeks because our hospital gave 2 weeks of diaper service to each mother ( they come take diapers and replace with clean ones). Although cheaper, diaper rash was more because of wetness. Very inconvenient. Don’t know if you have to wear rubber pants over them like used to. Didn’t keep clothes dry but in 45 years they may have improved. I used the cloth diapers I had bought as burp pads after that.

    About shower, when you have time call me and we’ll talk about it if you want my input.
    Love you

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  3. We cloth diaper and love it! When our daughter was little, we used the Kawaii Little Green Baby pocket diapers and have recently switched over to the BumGenius 4.0 pockets. Love love love them! If you end up breastfeeding, cloth diapering is super easy because you don’t have to spray out the poop. After solids are started (or if you use formula) you do have to spray them out before washing but there’s sprayers that you can attach to the toliet and it’s really no big deal. My daughter is almost a year now and I’m so glad we made the decision to cloth diaper.

    I say invite everyone you want to the baby shower. There were some people who were invited to my shower who didn’t attend and didn’t send a gift. No big deal.

    As for the birth plan, I didn’t make one, but we did take a great prenatal class and I knew I wanted to keep things as natural as possible. Living in Canada, our medical is publicly funded, so pain meds / epidural / c-sections are certainly not pushed (too $$ but available if the mother wants, of course (except you can’t request a c-section, obviously!)) so I wasn’t too worried about it. I did chat with my doctor beforehand but I think it’s more important for your birth partner to know what you want because the doctor is only there at the end and the nurses deal with everything else pretty much. Hope some of this helps 🙂

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  4. Hi! I only have input on the invites, as I’m dealing with something similar with the wedding. The best advice I received was, “close your eyes and picture your shower and who is there. Your family will be and the people you sought out to tell the special news.” I hope this helps if not I’ll add it to my prayers. If people get offended, it’s their loss and problem. This is your special day to celebrate this amazing baby… Don’t stress the small stuff.

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  5. For the baby shower, in my old job people would often make an open invitation to avoid the situation. Some kind of announcement to say it’s happening and people are welcome to come along if they would like to celebrate with you. My ex-colleagues found
    It eliminated the awkwardness of inviting people who think they shouldn’t be, while not leaving anyone out. That said, the people who will be offended that you “only want a gift” may be the kind to complain about anything just for complaining’s sake. Don’t worry too much about it!

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  6. 1. I will be using cloth for my baby who is due in November. There are many cloth diapering mums on youtube who do reviews of their favourites and collections, and heaps that do wash routines and cloth diapering 101 type videos. I inhaled these videos before buying any. I do have BumGenius in my collection and another FTM (her son is 4 months old) loves her BumGenius diapers and has found cloth really great. So far in my collection I have Bambooty, Rumparooz (including their newborn Lil Joeys), Close Pop In Newborn, Hippybottomus, BumGenius, Itty Bitty Bums and Green Kids. My mum did the old school terry toweling cloth nappies with triplets, pretty sure I can handle 1 baby in the Modern Cloth Nappies 😉 Most of the mums in the groups I’m in report less nappy rash, increased ability to contain poo-splosions (when fitted properly) and increased cuteness from the lovely prints you can get 😀

    2. Your baby shower, you choose. If you just want something intimate with close family and friends then do it 🙂 If people are offended then it is their problem, this should be a day all about you.

    4. My birth plan is literally “Get both of us to the other side alive and well, listen to my OBGYNs advice” – although I am still developing this plan. I am doing Prenatal Yoga to learn some positioning and breathing techniques and definitely want to remain as active as possible during labour. However, I am also researching all of my pain relief options and will take it as it comes. I think flexibility is key, so I may have a few very important things on my plan, but nothing too involved. Let me know if you get any great advice for these as I’m still researching!

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    • I have read great reviews on the Kanga Care Rumparooz! So far I have looked into those and Bum Genius.
      I have just started up some prenatal yoga at home too. I used to do it pre-pregnancy, and loved it (mind and body). Im excited to get back into it again! And i agree, being flexible is important when it comes to delivery.

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  7. Cloth nappies. Yes. I am using them for twins now. Tips – they need to fit well or you get leaks from the legs, so watch out on little babies. I didnt start till the twins were two months old, but now we use them whenever we are at home. We still use disposables when out and over night. We use the bamboo liners, so the poo goes straight into the bin. We change with every feed to avoid leaks.

    Baby shower. I’d invite onky who you want to. Make it clear that gifts are optional. We did. We said on our invites ‘gifts are not necessary, but nappies, wipes, etc, would be welcome’. We still got gifts of course. Ours was a mixed gender Baby BBQ. Chilled out with beers and sausages. Easy.

    Birth plan. No, no need. As long as you know the policies of your hospital on skin to skin, breastfeeding in recovery room etc, you dont need a birth plan. I feel that they are silly personally. I just wanted my babies alive, skin to skin asap and the chance to breastfeed. I was thrilled with my hospital and my ob, and my cesarean was a lovely experience. I would have felt like a diva if i walked in with a birth plan. I suggest you just talk with your ob and attend your hospital antenatal class. They will put your mind at ease on what the birth plan is… of course things hardly ever go to plan 😉

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    • What brand do u use? I am hoping to do a combo like you of disposable and cloth.
      Neat idea about the gift mention on the invites-I have never heard of it being done like that before!
      I am currently learning about skin to skin and such for c-sections as that is what I will most likely have. I would say that is my major priority othet than of course a healthy baby!

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  8. 1. As for diapers, right now we are learning towards disposable. I will only be home with him for 12 weeks, and my husband was not very interested in cloth diapering. I would consider it, but he would not and so that was the main deal breaker for us there.
    2. As for shower invites, I have a few close friends at work that I am inviting (4). I struggled with whether or not to invite one of them, but as one of my friends pointed out, it’s only one person and she can say no if she wants to – the thought was, since it’s so few people that we are close to and socialize with outside of work, that it would be better to invite her and give her the option than not to include her when I am including the other three. My other “work friends” (such as the people I supervise, the people on my team/boss, etc.) are not invited. However, it’s usually the norm where I work to throw a small shower with everyone on the team and have a cake, etc. so I didn’t feel the need to celebrate anything else with them other than having a small work party with cake.
    4. We are waiting until after our childbirth preparation class to discuss this. And, in my experience, my plans have all gone to crap anyway. My main goal (as others have said and I’m sure you feel the same) is to give birth to a healthy baby and for both of us to have no complications, whatever that looks like. I do know that I want to try natural, but I am not opposed to pain meds. I feel like some of the decisions are game time decisions and you really don’t know until it happens. However, right now I am reading “Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth” to start preparing for the birth experience. I’m about 1/4 of the way through right now.

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  9. For diapers, no cloth as we live in an apartment with common laundry so I think it would be hard. But I have friends that do it and love it! Not sure on their brands. You can always try it and see what you think!!

    For the invites, I think inviting everyone and giving them the option to decline is the way to go…less offended people I would think. Although someone above posted that it should be what YOU want with who YOU want and I totally agree.

    As for the birth plan, I am of the opinion that I just want my baby born safely. That being said, I do have some personal preferences I plan on communicating with the nurses and OB’s once I’m there. Not sure if I’ll formally write it out (maybe just for me to remember what to communicate once I’m in labor, lol). Honestly though I don’t think you can plan for everything and it will make the experience better if you have a loose idea of what you want but are flexible to what could happen. As for c/s, I am hoping to not have one as it is major abdominal surgery but if that’s what’s necessary (i.e. Baby is breech or there is an emergency) I am completely fine with it.

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  10. After what we had been through my birth plan was mostly a living, healthy baby no matter what the process. However, I was personally not into meds/drugs of any kind and I wanted to labor as naturally as possible. My hospital had a Jacuzzi tub in each room so I labored in there and loved it. My OBs and midwives (my practice has both) were great about me just doing what felt right.

    I did end up with an emergency c-section since baby was in distress (asynclitic) and his heart rate was dropping really low. I hadn’t done any reading on a c-section but it was all fine in the end. I trusted my OBs and my midwife and they made all the right calls for me.

    Obviously not the birth I envisioned but he is a perfect, healthy little boy. I think for me I had spent so many years envisioning that birth scene during our years of IF/RPL that for me it was more letting go of the “dream” than anything else.

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      • I was actually at Tradition and we LOVED it. Couldn’t have asked for a better experience. Once we made the nursing staff aware of our history they were so understanding of my anxiety day of and did their best to keep husband and I in the loop with what they were doing.

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  12. 1. We do disposable, but my SIL is a cloth diaper fan, as well as many friends. Someone I know who is extremely frugal did the math on cloth diapering v. disposable as far as cost and found that they wouldn’t actually save money until their second child was in them. With disposable, we do lots of coupons, the Cartwheel app via Target, and promotions, and we have been able to get the cost down considerably. We have also been given diapers randomly throughout the last several months since I think most people just assume that everyone does disposable, so that helps too. Also when friends’ kids grow out of a size, we often get leftovers. As far as diaper rash, we have never even dealt with it once in 6m, but my nephew in cloth diapers has had it often. My SIL also has to carry around a ton more stuff (when we all traveled for a funeral, she had to have a huge spray bottle of a soap/water mixture with her at all times to spray stuff off into the toilet and had to deal with the hassle of doing laundry in the hotel) and can only use certain products to wash them or my nephew since I guess they’re sensitive? She is super against disposables though so even in situations where it would make sense to do disposable for a few days, she won’t. But that’s okay because she loves it! I know someone who does a mix of both and that seems to work for them (they really love the bum genius brand btw), and I know someone who hated it after a few weeks and wasted a LOT of money on expensive cloth diapers. One of the big things for me was not wanting to do laundry every other day, but I ended up doing laundry every single day anyway since Ross has severe acid reflux and a lot of drool from that as well. It’s not for us so I was never interested but I am okay with what anyone chooses so long as they don’t make anyone else feel bad for their choices! I support you no matter what. 🙂

    2. I like the open invite idea someone mentioned above. 🙂

    3. Come back and ask when you do remember!

    4. We had to do a birth plan as stipulated by our agency (and requested by the birthing center) and I think the nice thing about it was that we had some clearly defined goals or preferences and it was easy for the nurses to read ahead of time so that they could support us in them. I can email you ours if you are interested… we had to include EVERYTHING because of the situation, so we had things on there like that I would be holding baby first and doing skin-to-skin immediately as long as he was healthy (he ended up having some initial problems, so I just got him asap then) and that I would have him with me for roughly an hour. We asked that he not be weighed and measured until later so that we could have those first moments to bond. We also had in there contingency plans like who would get to be in the room for an emergency c section, etc. Elle specified that she did not want an episiotomy under any circumstance and that she preferred to go as natural as possible and be without an IV so she had the ability to be mobile as long as everything was going normally. I think the biggest thing is that it’s important to know what you prefer and yet to still be flexible. The people who end up having terrible birth experiences often seem to be the ones who have a very narrow of what is acceptable. Ross did have some unforeseen issues and so we had to go with the flow at times, but I appreciated that the birth plan was an easy way to have everyone starting on the same page.

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    • Thanks for sharing your experiences! Ideally i would like to do a combo of cloth and dispoables as you mentioned. I am attending a class this upcoming week, so hopefully Ill learn some things at it.
      I may want to check out your plan! I will let u know 😊

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  13. Hello! I don’t know about 1-3 as I don’t have a baby, but… I thought I’d mention they I’m one of those people who want a scheduled / elective Caesarian. It’s actually very looked down on in the UK, but I really do not want to do it the other way unless they force me to! I have always felt that way. I have my first meeting with the consultant tomorrow so we shall see what he says. It might be difficult to get one here without going private, but I’m going to try.

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  14. 1. Cloth nappies – we wanted to do this, but then realised it would be difficult with the daycare we have chosen, so had to rule it out. Plus we also thought about the time aspect (depending on if you go for a service or clean them yourselves) we will both be working so those extra 15-20 mins from not doing extra washing will be precious for us! I have absolutely no experience in this so who knows whether this is a good or bad decision!!! We will but find out!
    2. I feel for you! I had these conundrums with our wedding!! Just think, would you be upset if they didn’t invite you to their baby shower…that might help! Although having said that, I didn’t get invited to a couple of baby showers I thought I would be and initially was secretly upset – but I got over myself – I still bought them a gift though because I wanted to!!
    3. I feel ya on pregnancy brain 😂
    4. Chris randomly one night last week asked me a series of questions from a birth planning guide. (He loves planning) I got pissed off at him because I kept saying, “I don’t know what I want to do yet! Or I’ll just go with the flow, it depends on the situation or I need to look into that…this…etc.” so basically I will think through a birth plan with Chris at some point, but I want to read more, go to some classes, visit the hospital etc and not get tied down to it because in the end it’s my first time so I don’t have strong preferences!!! I think it’s definitely worth thinking through some of the decisions you will need to make though and a birth plan helps you with that!

    Ps. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with the many decisions that need to be made in preparation for Rocky’s arrival! And in some ways because I’ve been in slight denial I’m probably behind in thinking about all these things! I mean – next thing I’ve got to do is choose a pediatrician….seriously so I have to decide now??!!! Aghhhh! Not sure if you feel like this too? You are probably more Organised than me – well you are with your nursery for sure!!! Can’t wait to see it!

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    • Yea, daycare would make it tough to use them I would think.
      I get secretly upset about things like invites too sometimes lol (call me overly sensitive) but I dont want others to feel that way.
      I am feeling overwhelmed about things too-I have not set up any meetings with pediatricians yet, but its on my to do list. Staying busy in the nursery helps me cope with my fears and anxieties… I think that is why I have so much done in there already!

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  15. 1) No cloth diapering experience, I’ve looked into it a lot, and if I thought I was going to be taking more time off work than I probably will, I would probably go for it.
    2) Going through this same thing… It’s almost like wedding invites all over again, and what a nightmare that was! I am just letting my mom and MIL decide, since they are throwing it technically, they are the ones inviting people, of course I have provided her with a list of people I need to have invited as well. My MIL makes me so nervous though, she did with the wedding too, like just inviting everyone she knew… and B and I paid for everything and we had to stop her and set her straight, which upset a lot of people, including her. In this case, I’m not spending $$$ per head, I’m not spending anything, so she can do what she wants, though I was worried when we went to a BBQ at her place on Saturday and she grabbed a notebook and started passing it around and telling people (that I don’t even know) to put their addresses on it. I felt kind of bad inviting these people when we didn’t invite them to our wedding, even though they would ask MIL if they could go, or just assumed they could. (This is B’s step dad’s family, not his mom’s, FYI, and he doesn’t even speak to most of them) But again… if you aren’t the one throwing it, I wouldn’t feel bad about who is invited and who isn’t. But I agree with you, I’d rather be invited and decline (because in no way does an invitation REQUIRE attendance, OR a gift) then not even have the opportunity to go, and no one (well, maybe) is going to want to invite themselves.
    3. Yup… me too
    4. I have gone so back and forth with this too, because I am the kind of person that gets upset when things DON’T go to my plan. So we are going with the generic “Get as far as I can without meds, take them if/when I need them and feel absolutely ZERO guilt about it, and if a C-section has to happen, it has to happen for a good reason, and we will deal with those emotions as they come” My birth plan is to leave the hospital with a healthy baby. Any more detail and I will get upset if my ‘plan’ changes. There are too many things you can’t plan for.

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    • Totally understandable about the cloth diapers and working. It is similar to a wedding again! Lol. I just hate making people feel bad. Im leaning towards extending the invites like u said. I hope it works out as you would like it to for your shower as well 😍

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  16. I love cloth diapering!! I have been using out cloth diapers for over a year now. My favourite by far are AppleCheeks and I also use GiggleLife (most bang for your buck and they work great). There are so many things you should know about cloth diapering though because it can be very discouraging at first. If you’d like, I could send you an email with all of my tips and tricks and mistakes I ran into. If not, things I would suggest you research are wash routines, ammonia burn, cloth diaper safe creams, yeast, leaky diapers. I’m so excited you want to give them a try!!

    My birth plan was pretty short. I knew I wanted to help deliver my baby (be able to pull him out) and that i wanted a mirror, but other than that, I just kind of left it because I didn’t want to feel any disappointment if things didn’t go according to my plan because it wasn’t really my plan, it’s was my baby’s plan and I was sure he would throw a few surprises of his own in there.

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  17. I just sent out invites to around 30 people (mine is co ed so some of those invites were to more than one person) but my sisters threw me a party when I went on vacation to see them and invited ppl I wouldn’t have thought would to invite because it had been so long since I’d seen or really talked to them but I ended up being surprised at who attended and it was wonderful and brought me back into contact with some old friends which was awesome!

    I have a birth plan! I want delayed cord cutting if possible (not if there is an emergency situation) I want baby on my chest skin to skin right away! I want to try breastfeeding as soon as possible… I have been learning breathing techniques for during labor and I have been learning different positions to help with the pain… I don’t want an epidural if I can avoid it but if I get one then I want to wait as long as possible so that I’m not stuck in bed for a long time… I’m okay with having to have a c-section if that is what will get my baby here safe and healthy so my birth plan is pretty open but I have a few things that I really want done! I’ve talked to my midwife about this and I will tell the nursing staff at the hospital this when I get there…

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