Our Second Month in the NICU

We just recently celebrated Avalyn's two month birthday! 

It was two months here in the NICU on October 16th and I know that I say this EVERY time, but I still can not believe that Ava is here! This little girl has done extraordinary things in the past month and she never ceases to amaze me. She has continued to gain weight, maintain her temperature, and take her bottles. She is still working on finishing them at every feed, but I just know that soon she will be finishing them! There are only three more weeks until my initial due date and I just know that in these next three weeks my Ava Bug will be ready to come home with us. 

She was nursing, but I have not been able to produce enough milk to continue nursing her. So we have stopped trying because it was starting to cause me pain. Every thing regarding breast feeding and pumping has been nothing but a pain. I still try to pump when I can but this last week has been a struggle; I maybe get 5ml a day now. Pumping hurts me and I dread doing it. Brian and I have been discussing everything and together have decided that it is time to throw in the towel. I know that I have done the best that I can and have tried everything I could. Unfortunately I am just one of those women who are not able to produce milk. Everyone has been wonderful in helping me cope with feeling like a failure. Now, I know I am not a failure but sometimes things like not being able to produce milk for your baby is hard to handle. I am getting over the feeling guilty that I didn't keep trying (I mean, nine weeks is enough right?) and the feeling like a huge, complete failure and loser. Every day that I am with Ava I see her getting bigger and stronger and I know that that is because of the formula she is given. Thankfully she tolerates it very well and we have not had any issues in regards to her digestion. Her doing so well on formula has proven to me that formula is not evil; it is not the worst thing you could give to your child. Of course breast milk would be ideal (Ava even prefers it) but formula has in a sense saved my baby from low birth weight. 

Since Ava's update last month, we have learned that she is tongue tied, like her momma. I am tongue tied and had been having problems with it in regards to the skin that is attached causing my gums to recede on the bottom (behind my teeth). Because we are so concerned with it causing problems for her later, we are going to be talking to the doctor about what we should do. If the doctor suggests clipping it, then I am all for it! I don't want her to have to deal with the possibility of having any speech problems or any issues like me. 

She also has a high palate; which could be the cause of her not being able to finish her bottles. From what I understood with her having a high palate, she was having a harder time sucking so she would suck more and not get a sufficient amount from the bottle. Basically she was worker harder and getting nothing for it; which is why she would get so tired. So we are going to be experimenting with various nipples to see if that is the source of her problem. She also is pretty small still so that alone could be why she is not able to finish her bottles. 

Just this past week she has had all of her immunizations and we have filled out the forms for her car seat evaluation. All of those are signs that she is getting ready to come home! Now, we have no idea when the car seat test will be done, but the car seat is at the hospital and the paper work has been filled out, so it should be soon! Unfortunately I can not tell you exactly what is done during the car seat test, but I do know that they put Ava in the seat while she is hooked up to her monitors and then monitor her for an hour to see how she does. I truly don't think there is anything more to it than that. 

Other than all of that, our second month in the NICU has been rather uneventful (which is a very good thing!). We know most of the nurses either by name or by face, the receptionists know our faces, we have seen babies come and we  have seen babies go. Pretty soon our stay here will be complete and little miss Avalyn will become a NICU graduate. I can not wait for graduation day! It has been a very stressful and frustrating couple of months and the thought of my munchkin coming home is the one thing that keeps me going. Of course all of the support I have from Brian, friends, and family has helped out a lot as well. 

In the mean time, here is an adorable photo of my little pumpkin belly in her first Halloween costume!!

Our Adventures Into Cloth Diapering: Prepping Prefolds

For those of you that may not already know, Brian and I had decided during my pregnancy to use cloth diapers on our little girl. Since that decision, several people have questioned our reasoning behind deciding to do so; I have gotten several questions as to why we have chosen to cloth diaper, what we plan to do if it fails, how does it work, etc.
Well, I plan to answer all of those questions the best that I can. After all, this is completely new to us as well and is a part of our adventure into parenthood.
Now first of all, I want to make it clear that I would not be able to do this if it weren't for my friend and fellow (soon-to-be) momma, Aubrey. Without any of her help into this whole new world, I would be incredibly lost. She has helped me get involved in some groups on Facebook, gave me some wonderful resources to get started, and gives me someone to talk to about "fluff" and helps answer any of my questions when I can not find the answers to them. She is a wonderful resource and though we are thousands of miles away, we are experiencing this new journey.
Okay, cloth diapering...
One of the first steps into cloth diapering (aside from doing your homework and picking out what diapers you think will be right for you and your child) is creating your stash and then prepping that stash when it gets close to the time of baby arriving. Well, my baby made a very early and unexpected appearance three months early, so I am just now getting to my prepping stage/s. Avalyn is expected to be coming home within the next month or so, so I figured it was time to get moving!
Brian and I decided that to start our little miss out, we were going to be using prefolds and covers. Before we knew that she was going to be a premature baby we had decided that we wanted to start out on prefolds; something was telling me that my daughter was going to be smaller than usual when she arrived and low and behold, I was correct!
I wish I could say that she was cloth diapered straight from birth, but unfortunately with her being a preemie and in the NICU for over a month already, she is currently in "sposies" for several reasons. The majority of those reasons include her being too small to fit into the prefolds we had purchased and also because I wouldn't ask that of the nurses here; they are so busy that I was afraid they wouldn't have time to work with her being in cloth diapers. Sometimes our nurses are in a four to five baby assignment and that is some difficult work (I don't know how they pull it off!). So when she comes home we will start her on our diapers.
Anyways, on to the fun part! PREPPING!!!
Now I had done a little bit of research as far as prepping these prefolds (unbleached indian cotton) and I had discovered that boiling them was one of the quickest ways to prep. Usually when prepping your diapers it takes several washes (try like, 6 to 7!) and supposedly boiling them in a little bit of Dawn dish soap would help cut down on those washes.
First of all, make sure you do you research before you start boiling everything!!!! Do not boil anything with PUL or TPU because it will destroy it and make sure you look up the various ways of prepping various materials (hemp, bamboo, microfiber, etc.).
I chose the boiling method because one, I had the time, and two because it cuts down on washes. I had it in my head that it would take a few hours and I would be done...WRONG! It turned into an all day/all night event! Though incredibly time consuming, it was actually really fun and made the day fly by!

All that you need for prepping prefolds is:

Your prefolds, of course, a large pot (this was the largest that I have, so a bigger one would be ideal), detergent for cloth diapers (you can use whatever your preference is, ours is currently EcoSprout), some tongs (for pulling out the hot prefolds), and a little bit of Dawn dish soap. 

I have read/heard that you do not have to use Dawn, but that it does help pull any natural oils out of the cloth.

I would also recommend a laundry basket or a bucket lined with a big towel; in our case we used the bucket that Brian uses to wash our car with and a beach towel, since it is one of the biggest towels that we own. Just make sure that whatever you do decide to use is big enough to hold all of your prefolds! I have two dozen and they all fit into this one bucket. :)

So, on to the fun part!!

Step One: Fill your pot up with water until it is almost full, but not too full or else you will have water boiling over! I used hot water to help the water boil a little faster. Add a squirt of Dawn dish soap; just a little squirt or else you will get lots of bubbles, like in the picture. I put a lid on the pot to prevent the bubbles from bubbling over. 

There we go! The bubbles have been controlled! The wooden spoon is there to prevent the pot from boiling over...a nice little trick I learned while wasting several hours on Pinterest.

I added about 3 or 4 prefolds to the pot for each batch. I did experiment with that amount and found that three worked the best. 

Step 2: Boil each batch of prefolds for 25-30 minutes. Every other batch you need to change your water because it will turn yellow! 

Before.

After two batches. ICK! 

Step 3: After boiling, pull each prefolds out of the hot water and try to get as much water out of them as possible without burning yourself!! I did this by wrapping the diaper around my tongs and pressing it up against the side of the pot. Once you get as much water out of them as you can, drop them into the lined bucket or laundry basket until they are all done and ready to be washed and dried.

After being boiled, your prefolds will look like this: 

The one on the left has not been boiled yet. Notice the slight quilting on the one on the right? This is a good sign that you are doing things correctly! 

Step 4: Once you have boiled all of your diapers, put them in the washer and let them soak in hot water for about 30 minutes. After soaking, let them be washed without any detergent to help pull out any Dawn dish soap that may be left on the after the boiling. Rinse in cold water and then repeat this entire step!

Step 5: Put into dryer on HOT and let them dry completely.

After being washed in the hot soak/cold rinse and dried completely. Notice how much more quilted the diaper is! 

Step 6: Wash all of the diapers again but this time use 2-3 tablespoons of whatever cloth diaper detergent you decide to use and then dry completely.

And this is what your dipes will look like after they are done! Nice and soft and quilted and perfect for Baby's bottom!

All that I have left to do as far as Avalyn's diapers is to "prep" her covers! That will be exciting and should not take nearly as long as these prefolds did! Plus we only have four covers to prep, so I will be able to just get those going while I work on something else. 

So as you can tell, cloth diapering is definitely a little bit more work than just grabbing a "sposie" but I think that it will all be worth it in the long run! 

One more thing!

If you have any questions in regards to cloth diapering, why we chose to cloth diaper, etc. please send them to my email address at: chelseymarie07@gmail.com! Thank you!! :)