Laundry, Morphine, Wanting To Poo & Other Exciting Adventures

Sorry I've been MIA lately. It seems like its been one thing after another & I'm finally able to come up for a gulp of air! But that's life with kids, right? ;-)

First I was sick with a nasty cold & then each of my chicks came down with it. Then back on Thursday night around midnight, I woke up with a horrible pain in my stomach & back. By 7 am & no sleep & unrelenting pain, I told my husband that we should probably go to the ER.

I figured it'd be an in & out trip. I was so embarrassed that they may send me home with a mere diagnosis of a bad case if gas. I've known several pregnant women who've gone to the ER thinking there was something wrong & turned out they just had a big ol' air bubble that needed turned loose.

Heck, I know at least one woman who went to Labor & Delivery when her water broke but it turned out that she had merely peed her pants.

I did not want to be one of these women.

I took 5 Gas-X tablets hoping to free some hidden beast within, but it was to no avail. We woke the kids & headed towards the hospital.

Along the way, stuck in rush hour/going to work & school traffic, wedged between a Lexus, a full school bus & a Suburban, I puked in a wonton soup take-out container.

Have I mentioned how glamorous my life is?

Now, for the sake of your boredom & my fear of losing half my followers, I will skip over the boring trivial parts.

Basically all's they found was a UTI (urinary tract infection). But they did a quick ultrasound to check on my little bean baby! I had no clue how small they can be! But there, in black & white, was my 6 wk 2 day old baby with a strong heartbeat! No sign of distress, thank God!

The Dr put me on an IV because I was slightly dehydrated, along with something for the nausea and MORPHINE for the pain!

I have never had morphine before but mainly worried about the safety of my Baby Bean and my little nursling. They reassured me that it was fine to have the morphine, so they added that to the IV.

All was fine. I thought. I was pain-free & relaxed. But I was totally unprepared for what happened next. The morphine high. I had fallen asleep & when I woke up, I was g-o-n-e. I could see everyone & hear everyone but they sounded a million miles away. I could barely move. I thought I was dying.

But my responsibilities as a breastfeeding momma did not cease just because I was high as a kite in a hospital bed. Austin was hungry. Bored. And pissed. Very pissed. I was slacking on the job & he let everyone know how unacceptable that was.

I drunkenly tried to roll to one side & push one side of my bra down, while Antonio tried to position Austin next to me. Austin latched right on. His eyes rolled back in his head in ecstasy. I had to smile.

As the nurse came in to check my vitals for the last time & get me ready to leave, she discovered that my blood pressure had dropped. Low. Really low.

Luckily they were able to get it back up by hooking me up to another bag of fluids, but what I thought was going to be an in-and-out trip to the ER, ended up being an 11 hour ordeal!

But I'm home now & fine.

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Cloth diapers. We have transitioned to pretty much full time cloth diapering. And we are loving it! I've found that I mainly prefer prefolds (the unbleached Indian ones). They are much more absorbant than my flats & the poop seems to shake off easier in the toilet. We have not had any leaks yet! And we've had some messy diapers. I mean, loose, filled-to-the-brim full poopy diapers! LOL The worst that's happened was the poop got into the leg gussets of the cover, but the cover held it all in! It was amazing! I can definitely say that had he been wearing disposables at those times, we definitely would've been cleaning up some nasty blow-outs!

The only downside, really, is that we only have 4 covers, so that when the poop gets on the cover, we have to rinse the cover then toss it in the diaper pail. Because of those few messy diapers, I had to wash a couple of extra loads of diapers this week. But it really was no trouble at all. I just wash them once in hot & do an extra rinse. I hang the covers to dry but toss the diapers in the dryer for 90 minutes. Done!

For nighttime diapers, though, I have found that a tri-folded flannel receiving blanket with a washcloth folded inside of it works great. It's super soft, not bulky & very absorbant!

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Shampoo. I believe its been 3 wks since I last shampooed.

I admit: I miss it. I miss the sweet fragrance. I miss the bubbly feeling of sudsing up in the shower. I miss using styling products.

But I have made a commitment to do this for at least six weeks.

My hair isn't looking worse than usual, in terms of cleanliness. I have faith that this is the healthier option for my locks.

But I do think that I'm going to start using styling products, at least on weekends. I miss my curly hair.

One Week...No Poo!

So I have finished one poo-less week.

So far, I'm pretty happy about the condition of my hair.

I've noticed that my hair *may* be getting a tad more oily. Nothing severe & a quick baking soda wash cleans it beautifully!

This is a completely normal part of the "no poo" transformation. It normally takes 2-6 weeks to get my scalp adjusted to not being harshly stripped by shampoo. It's so used to producing oil to replace the oils removed by the shampoo & now it needs to learn to regulate the amount of oils it produces.

I've also noticed that the slight dandruff problem that I had seems to be clearing up! Bonus! LOL

The only thing that I'm worried about, is what to do about styling products.

I have completely eliminated all of them from my beauty routine so far, as most no-pooers do.

I've heard from other curly-haired no-pooers that their hair began to look better than ever, sans products, once they got through the initial oil-regulating-process.

So, for now, the ponytail will continue to be my best friend!

And I will continue to keep shampoo & conditioner away from my tresses. ;-)

Oh! And on a pleasant side note: I was told that my hair smelled really good yesterday. Double bonus! (Last night, when I took out my ponytail, I took a whiff, just to see if it was true. You know what? It *did* smell great! Kind of a fresh clean smell!)

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Not Gonna Poo!

So, I've just heard of the "no 'poo" thing. Have you heard of it? No 'poo means "no shampoo". But not exactly. Most people, when they hear "no shampoo", they conjure nasty images of greasy hair, head lice, dirty....a whole plethora of grody-ness.

In fact, going no shampoo means no store-bought shampoo. Instead, you use natural every day household products & make your own shampoo/hair rinse.

Some people do this for the ecological benefit: no more plastic bottles filling up garbage landfills, no more hazardous chemicals being washed down the drain.

This is a wonderful reason for adopting the "no poo" lifestyle.

Alas, its not my reason for wanting to go poo-less.

I am apparently more self-centered.

I'm going to attempt going "no poo" to score myself some healthy, shiny locks! There is a vast assortment of information you can get about the benefits of "no poo", so I'm not going to get into it. But from the various unrelated accounts that I've read, eliminating shampoo from your routine can give you a head full of gorgeous hair!

There are a few different ways to go "no poo".

One way is to cut out shampoo but just wash your hair with conditioner.

I'm not going that route.

I am instead using an initial rinse of baking soda & water. Followed by an apple-cider-vinegar & water rinse.

Today was my first day implementing this process.

Here are my thoughts about my first time using this method:

a.) Baking soda tastes nasty. Then again, so does shampoo. So, I guess I'd rather it be all-natural & safe. And I'll close my mouth tighter next time.

b.) The baking soda rinsed out easily. My hair was "squeaky" while rinsing it out, which made me feel that it was accomplishing something. It wasn't sudsy & bubbly (like shampoo) but that's because its not filled with bubbley gel-like chemicals. The main component to effectively using this method, is to be sure to vigorously massage the scalp to remove dirt & oil.

c.) Holy shower head! Vinegar stinks!!! Luckily, the vinegar smell rinsed out with the vinegar.

d.) Once out of the shower & I had towel dried my hair a bit, I combed it out. It wasn't slippery smooth like my hair tends to be after I use my regular conditioner & that worried me a bit. But my hair wasn't tangled (thanks to the vinegar), which is awesome since my curly hair tends to get tangled in the shower.

e.) As my hair dried, I was very happy with how shiny it was! I am also not using products in my hair (curl spray, mousse, hair spray, etc), not until I determine if I can eliminate their use from my life, like so many "no poo"ers have been able to do. I did pull my hair back into a ponytail (my signature weekday hair style). I was really happy to see my hair had a nice wavy curl to it & wasn't anywhere as frizzy as it is when I shampoo, condition & then not apply styling products. Plus, my hair feels really soft.

Bottom line: I'm going to continue going "no poo"!

By the way, it has been 3 days since I last used shampoo & conditioner.

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