I'm still alive!!!

Don't you worry about me! I'm still here! I'm still kicking!

I just get very off track and bored with the blog thing sometimes. I run out of things to talk about. BUT I'm back. With a whole new category of things to talk about.

Homebirths and cloth diapering will be introduced to this blog. Yes Mel, I totally intend to cloth diaper.

I'll update my faithful followers on my family quickly before I get into my little rant about Nebraska! We've moved! We now reside in a lovely little duplex with a huge backyard. We still live in the same town just in a new home. Rileigh loves all the space she has as do Stefan and I. Rileigh will be 2 on Monday the 28th and we have a party planned for her on the 26th at Helgoth's Pumpkin Patch. We're very excited. She's also in phase 1 of potty training. Yay, Rileigh! Stefan and I are currently enrolled in Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and are still on BabySteps 1 and 2. We're doing well with it though and we love it. It's brought our relationship to an entirely different level. Things are going very well for us.

On to my rant. Nebraska makes it virtually impossible and mostly illegal to have a homebirth. Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) are not allowed to attend a home birth. It is against the law here in Nebraska. What kind of malarky is that?

This all came about after I read about Ricki Lake's documentary "The Business of Being Born" and decided (with hesitation) to rent and watch it. I was certain I wouldn't change my mind about wanting a totaly medical hospital birth complete with epidural. Boy was I dead wrong. I so desperately want a homebirth now. I was very discouraged to find out that it was nearly impossible in Nebraska.

In January of this year Ken Haar (D) introduced LB481 into Nebraska Legislature. This bill is designed to lift restrictions on CNMs attending homebirths. This, however, does not change the fact that they are not allowed to work independently from hospitals or medical clinics. I'm not sure if there is a bill for this introduced yet or not. Although I'm sure many hospitals will threaten CNMs their positions when LB481 passes and they want to go out and do homebirths. Which makes me quite annoyed. Moving on.

I've recently joined the website Nebraska Midwives and plan on getting involved on getting this bill passed so that I can legally give birth at home when that time comes.

You can read more about LB481 on the Nebraska Legislature website.

I've also been researching heavily on cloth diapering child number 2 when the time comes. Since Rileigh will be potty trained soon I won't be putting money towards a cloth diaper "stash" for her. Stefan was not on board with this at all in the beginning but I sat him down and showed him some "Bumgenius 3.0" one size diapers and told him how they worked. They're just like disposables now only cheaper and cuter. I also showed him The GoodMama brand of clothe diaper which comes in a variety of patterns and is apparently the "Eddie Bauer" of clothe diapers. These are the two brands I am most interested in when it comes to cloth diapers and they are also the two brands I've heard the best reviews on which is very encouraging.

I've told a few family and friends that I'm interested in clothe diapers for baby number 2 and was met with much resistance. I'm not sure if they think we're going old school with pre-folds and pins or what, but cloth diapers have come such a long way since then! For those who do use pre-folds (they are still around) there is a new invention called the "Snappi" invented by a father! They're safer than a pin and hold more securely. My daycare provider told me she refused to support me with cloth diapers and would ask me to purchase disposables. I was actually quite surprised by this. I wasn't prepared for a debate and actually new nothing about cloth diapers at the time and just shrugged her off. I'm hoping to not need her in the near future.

I now know how revolutionary cloth diapers now are! They're no different than disposables! They're better on the environment, your pocket book, your baby's bum and they're cute as can be!

More to come about both of these topics as I research more and get to experience them both! Stay tuned!