A Ladybug's Perspective

Homemade Household Cleaners

mls060609 — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 14:46:06 +0000

Have you ever considered making your own household cleaners? What are the advantages of making your own?

Homemade cleaners are Non-toxic
Less expensive
Eco Friendly

Sounds great right? I have tried a few of the recipes from this website and I must say that I am really liking the results! I will write a few posts about individual recipes that I have tried and their results later. Kind of a try it before you buy it type of thing. Or I guess try it before you make it! Also, as always I will do a price breakdown and the difference between the DIY stuff and the store-bought. If you have ever tried any of these (or other recipes) please, please share your results and the recipes that worked for you with me!

Have you gave in to the craze?

mls060609 — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 02:32:35 +0000

Well I have. I’ve decided that I want to know what this thing called Swag Bucks is all about. To be honest, it seems pretty awesome. You answer polls, take surveys, and search the internet like normal and you earn these things called Swag Bucks. Then you can trade in these Swag Bucks for real prizes. Awesome right? I think you should check it out. Clickity Click Click:

Rather humbling really…

mls060609 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 20:45:47 +0000

I found this link on the Eco Friendly Family Blog (this post). If you haven’t ran across it yet you should go take a look. It helps put the oil spill into a better prespective: http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/.

You type in your zip code and the website generates the oil spill around you so you can see what it would look like if the oil spill had happen in your area. To be honest, it is kind of humbling to see almost your enitre state covered in oil.

Check it out for yourself.

Thank Heaven for Cloth Diapers!

mls060609 — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:33:18 +0000

I’m in love! I can’t believe how much and how well they hold. Of course, they are a little more work when I go to change her, but it is so worth it. She only fits into the Thirsties as of yet, but it is still better than nothing.

Yesterday she had one of the most ginormous poops I have ever seen. I guarantee you that this poop would have been coming out the back and sides of a disposable newborn diaper. The cloth held it in so well that I hadn’t even realized she had pooped that much until it was open. A-mazing. And one other thing, she has had a little bit of diaper rash for the last week or so that just doesn’t seem to want to go away. She was in CDs from 9am until around 6pm yesterday and the rash was COMPLETELY gone. I put her back in the disposable diapers for night-time (because we are still getting use to the CDs and they are still a little big on her even though she has grown) and by this morning the rash was back! It makes me wonder what is in these disposable diapers that is giving my poor little bug such a bad rash?

Now for the next step of CDing: using cloth wipes! I purchased some flannel at Wal-Mart from the clearance bin (20% off!) and cut them up into squares that where 7″ by 7″. Then I took them over to my mother’s house, pined two squares together, and used mom’s serger to sew them together. I got the idea from The Eco Friendly Family Blog (can you tell that I love that blog??) from this post of hers. I can’t wait to try these out tomorrow!

Happy 1 Month Little Bug

mls060609 — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:11:58 +0000

My baby girl is one month old today. All I can say is holy crap! I really can’t believe how quickly it has all gone. I know it is only a month, but still it almost seems impossible that my little girl is already there! Well, here is to many, many more months, hopefully with a little more sleep!

Well Baby Check: 1 Month

mls060609 — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:20:16 +0000

Time for another check! How terribly exciting right? No, not really. No paperwork, (not that I’m complaining) no shots, (again not complaining) and nothing really for the doctor to do. She was so good for the how thing though. The doctor poked her and prodded at her and she just looked slightly annoyed. Don’t be fooled though, she isn’t like that all the time.

This time she came in weighing 8 lbs 3 oz. Wow right? She still is in the 19th percentile though, but since she was born a week early the doctor isn’t worried. I mean, she has gained almost 2 lbs since leaving the hospital. I’m happy with it. And now, since she has lost her cord and weighs 8 lbs we can start to use CDs. And that is the best news of all!

Well Baby Check: 1 week

mls060609 — Wed, 19 May 2010 19:13:10 +0000

We had Bug’s first appointment today with doctor. We love him! He is so wonderful with her and she just loves to listen to his voice. I was so nervous about this appointment because I was afraid that she wouldn’t have gained enough weight (since she is breastfed.) Well when she was born she was 6 lbs 11 oz and when we left the hospital she weighed 6 lbs 4 oz. Thankfully when they weighed her she was 6 lbs 12 oz!! I’m so proud of her (and myself a little) since she is already past her birth weight and not even two weeks old!!

Besides that, there was really nothing at all exciting about this appointment. It was my first outing with her without DH and I found that I am not very good at carrying her in her car seat. I’m sure I will get better.

If the shoe fits…

mls060609 — Sun, 16 May 2010 21:29:31 +0000

Even though my daughter’s cord hasn’t fallen off yet, I just couldn’t help but try on her cloth diapers. I know it will be a few weeks before she is actually in them, but I just couldn’t wait to see what they look like. Well, they are huge! Of course, this was to be expected since I bought all small sizes instead of newborn sizes and BG is a little more than 6 lbs.

The Thirsties Duo fit the best and the GroBaby was the largest. Obviously, there is no really good way to explain how they fit, so instead I will just show you!

(This should go without saying, but these pictures are my property and cannot be used without my consent.)

This is her with just the prefold and a snappi:

Thirsties Duo Cover:

With her outfit snapped up over the Thirsties Duo Cover:

Flip cover over prefold:

Outfit snapped over Flip cover:

GroBaby cover over prefold: (HUGE!!)

Outfit snapped (barely) over GroBaby cover:

So, as you can see she won’t be able to fit into these for a while. However, the Thirsties Duo diaper looked like it would hold, it was just a little bit to big. The Flip and the GroBaby will have to wait till she is a little bigger.

My birth story.

mls060609 — Sat, 15 May 2010 18:34:12 +0000

On Thursday May 6 I had an appointment to do an NST and Blood Pressure check. The was the third time they had me come in for this because my blood pressure had been slowly creeping up and up. At the appointment I was still just barely 1 cm, maybe, just like I had been for a couple of weeks. Well, my blood pressure was still up, but the straw that broke the camels back was when they found protein in my urine sample. Doctor decided to put me on bed rest and schedule an induction. I was freaking out.

Fast forward to Sunday May 9 and you find me and Bran loading up the Jeep getting ready to head to the hospital. I was having the hardest time wrapping my head around the fact that our lives would never be the same. I don’t really think it had hit him yet. We arrive at the hospital and got checked in at 7 pm. They insert Cervidil to help soften my cervix and we are left to wait. The plan was to take the Cervidil out at 7 am the next morning and start Pitocin at 7:30. Soon after they placed the Cervidil I started having contractions, but nothing very big or consistent. Bran messed around on the internet and I read a book until around 10 when we decided to try to get some sleep. At about 10:30 I called the nurse in and asked her if there was anything she could give me for the contractions. They didn’t really hurt, but they were keeping me awake and I really wanted to get as much rest as possible before the next day. She came in with Stadol. OMG! That stuff was trippy, but if did help numb the contractions and soon after I drifted off in a fitful sleep.

The next morning I woke up around 6:30 when the nurse came in to check vitals. The medicine from the night before had made me sweat almost uncontrollably and I woke up soaked and slightly dehydrated. The nurse had started and IV in my arm but it hadn’t been hooked up to anything yet, so after she finished getting my vitals she hooked me up to a saline drip to help be regain some fluid. The next thing I realized was that I was starving, and of course not allowed to have any food. Thankfully, when I told the nurse that I normally don’t do well with an empty stomach (puking up stomach acid is always fun) she called the doctor and had some Zofran prescribed for me.

Just like she promised she was back at 7 am to remove the Cervidil and check my cervix. Still just 1 cm dilated, my heart sank. I just knew that I was in it for the long haul. She unhooked me from my IV at that point and allowed me to take a shower God bless her. She was a wonderful nurse, but the next nurse to come on shift was even better.

Her name was Vicki and Bran and I loved her. She was in her late 40′s or early 50′s and she was one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met, but she also really knew her stuff. Once I was back in bed from having my shower she set my up with another bag of saline and Pitocin. I spent the next 15 minutes just waiting for something to happen. Waiting for my contractions to start intensifying, waiting for the pain to get worse, just waiting for anything.

Nothing. I finally relaxed, telling myself that I shouldn’t get all uptight and that I should be thankful that the pitocin isn’t reeking havoc on my body yet. It went like this until around 10 am when my doctor came in. She checked my cervix again and to my dismay I was still only 1 cm even though I had been having pretty consistent contractions (still not very painful yet though.) She decided to break my water and I have to admit that was one of the weirdest feelings ever. I should have been able to imagine that it would feel like I huge waterfall gush, but I just never expected to experience anything like that coming from that area. At this point, I think the doctor also ordered the nurse to up the Pitocin a little and with a smile told me that she expected to see me again around 5 pm.

FIVE PM? I could have broken down and cried, except shortly after she left I had my first real contraction. It only lasted about 55 seconds, but it was much more intense than any of my previous contractions had been. I began to hope that maybe the doctor was wrong, just maybe. Then about 15 seconds later there was another one. This one was longer and more painful, so I decided now would be a good time to tell the nurse that I was ready for my epidural.

She came in and I told her my intentions and she smiled very sweetly at me and informed me that I would need to get at least 2 more bags of saline into my system before they would put it in. Okay, that is fine I thought. I can handle this until then. At that point it was about 10:45 am.

Fast forward to 11:50 am and the lady who is going to put my Epidural in has just arrived. I am having contractions that are lasting about 1 min and 20 seconds and on average are 2 to 3 seconds apart. Now, I know that I’m not by any means the strongest woman in the world and that many women go through this without pain meds, but I was in so much constant pain that tears were rolling down my face and I was doing everything within my willpower to not scream out (because I refused to be the lady in the labor room screaming profanities at the top other lungs) or throw my stomach up. I believe that if they wouldn’t have given me the Zofran early that day I would have thrown up my entire GI tract by this point. My poor husband was beside himself. He couldn’t stand watching me in so much pain and not being able to do anything about it. I hated seeing the look on his face, I really almost felt sorry for him. Of course then another contraction would start and I would lose all grip on reality again.

Thankfully, about 25 minutes later the epidural was in and working… on the right side. Awesome. Of course feeling half the pain is still so much better than all the pain. They gave me a little bit more medicine in through the Epidural which helped to numb the left side a little. Enough to the point were the contractions on that side were much more bearable and I was only feeling around 20 seconds of each when they hit their peak. Of course, my right side was completely dead to the world.

At around 12:50 the nurse came in to check my cervix and miraculously I was complete! OMG we are going to have a baby now? At that point I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do this, and the look on Bran’s face told me that he was in a similar state of shock as well. We weren’t suppose to be having a baby this soon. We were still supposed to have 4 or 5 more hours to be childless. Oh well, change of plans.

At this point the extra drugs they had put in my epidural were no longer doing their job and so they and the anesthesiologist come back and she gave the same drugs that they put in your epidural if you are going in for a C-Section. Well, folks that finally did! I was no longer able to feel painful contractions on either side of my body, only pressure and what a blessing that was.

At exactly 1:00 pm I started pushing. My doctor, not expecting me to reach 10 cm so quickly hadn’t shown up yet and so Vicki was there guiding me along. I was wonderfully surprised to find out that pushing was really not that bad. It felt good almost to be pushing finally. However, to my dismay, because I was sure this was going to slow everything down, the medicine they had given me so that my left side would go numb also slowed my contractions down to 1 every minute to minute and a half. Before that they had been coming every 20 to 30 seconds. In spite of this, at around 1:12 Vicki told me that I needed to stop pushing and that when my next few contractions came to try my best to not push at all. I sat there, trying my best to avoid pushing until the doctor finally arrived at around 1:22.

She smiled at me and expressed her surprise that I had progressed so fast and went straight to work! By 1:33 PM my darling baby girl had arrived! I had a 2nd degree tear but other than that both of us were just perfect.

And that is how this wonderful journey began.

And my life has officially changed!

mls060609 — Wed, 12 May 2010 01:21:17 +0000

At my last appointment (little did I know it would be my last!) my doctor decided to schedule an induction because of my high blood pressure. So, on Sunday May 9, 2010 at 7:00 in the evening DH and I arrived at the hospital. I was placed on Cervidil to prepare my cervix and at 8:00 Monday morning I was placed on Pitocin. My daughter arrived at 1:33 PM on Monday, May 10, 2010.

Needless to say, we are in love! I plan on writing a blog about my labor and delivery in hopes, as always, that my ramblings will help out anyone out there looking for information. Also, I want to have the experience written down before I completely forget. For now, DH and I are just loving our daughter and are scheduled to go home tomorrow morning. I’m so excited for this journey to begin!

Now, to go hold my daughter, I just can’t get enough!