Converting to Cloth (Day Two)

Saturday: Disaster struck in the middle of the night.

I felt a spurt and knew I was 'flooding'. But I've also learned over the years that this was not a good time to get to the loo. I had to let the flow settle a little.

When I did -- 2.45am -- the liner was amazingly not totally covered in blood as expected, but part of the pad was stained and blood had flowed onto the knickers down one side. I must have been lying on my (right) side when the spurt occurred.

Drat! I thought. Does this mean that cloth is not for me? But as I examined the 'damage', I realised that this would have happened even if I was wearing a disposable maternity pad.

When lying on one's side there is no way that any pad would absorb the flow quickly enough before it runs off the surface.

Removed the 'regular' liner and let it soak in my new little bin (the one with feet). Re-arranged the bottom 'long liner' in clean underwear and went back to bed.

Between then and dawn I felt a few more spurts of blood and imagined that I would be in a total mess again. When I had a chance to check, the knickers were to my absolute surprise still clean. However the back end of the liner had folded over and was stained. This could have been easily avoided.

Stretching out the liner I discovered that I still had one clean 'panel' (the liner had been folded into five layers). So I rearranged this and re-inserted it into the pad to give me another dry surface.

I could really do with changing the pad at this point. But since I only had one of this size I couldn't. Mental note: at least two pads needed.

My flow is normally heaviest on the second day. About 10.30am I changed the 'long' liner for a new one.

The 'regular' one which had been soaking in cold water was washed out. The easiest way to get stains out seems to be to rub bar soap into it. The flannel is quite thick and rubbing in reaches out to every molecule of dirt. Then I used my thumb to go over the area until the stain goes and rinsed it out. It went onto a radiator to dry.

Since then we've been to the visiting French Market, had lunch, and now I am going to have a little rest from writing.

==============

3.50pm: Felt big spurt as I started preparing a cake. Just put the cake in the oven now. Liner is wet, but not leaking. Knickers still clean. A-may-zing! In between I'd also been trying to find out as much as possible about what women think of washable pads.

Looks like opinion is divided. There are those who cannot sing its praises any louder, and there are those who way, "Yeuk!" and won't budge from that position.

==============

We were all tired and decided to go to bed about 9pm. Re-arranged the liner again for a dry surface before going to bed.

Husband and I are serving communion at church tomorrow. Do I use a cloth liner and risk an accident, or shall I use cloth in faith?

Back to Organic-Ally.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Upcycling clothing labels -- don't throw anything away!

Image
Over the last two years I went through a period of buying new clothes to replace some "holey" ones. Each time I find a hard board label that comes with a punched hole and string, I say to myself: these are too good to go in the bin , even the recycling bin. (I am not sure if mixed materials like cardboard and metal can be recycled.) As I started to write this, I googled and learned that these are called "string" or "swing tags". They are basically custom "travel tags" which you can buy at stationers. In fact, there are crafters who personalise travel tags and sell them on market platforms (five for £3.50!). This is what I did for Christmas 2023. I started with these tags, all of sturdy cardboard, with punched holes. I removed the strings, but kept them, and you can replace them later. I then found my stash of Christmas cards from last year (ie those sent to us and saved from the bin). On the spot, decided to cut them into 1/2 inch strips. They co...
Read more

Going organic -- slowly

I was 'in conversation' with another happy customer. He tells me that "when things need replacing we try and replace them with an organic/fairtrade option". I think that is just such a sensible way to go. Like him, we are slowly switching over to organic bedding. Although the definition for 'need replacing' is slightly modified in my case. My son and I both have sensitive skin and some things have been making us itch. I wonder if it is the cheap cotton sheets we've been using. Up till now we've been buying bedding on the basis of whether they look good. For example, son was into anything to do with space/exploration, so we went and got him bedding with a 'space' theme on it. At that time I had no idea what harm conventional cotton was doing and the effect of conventional cotton on the skin. Some places offer such 'cheap' options that we -- I, really -- had succumbed to the temptation and had bought what I thought would suit us and our s...
Read more

Linguistic Hegemony: Cockles and Muscles

(A shorter, less controversial version of this was published in the Straits Times online section on 11th October. I had assumed that the Editor was not going to run it. Apologies for the overlaps.) The English-Singlish debate has thrown up a vociferous group defending the use of Singlish, largely because they see Singlish as being tied up with a Singapore identity. (I tried to explain how being a good Singaporean should not preclude us from learning to speak good English in a letter to the press .) This group seems to be made up of people who are able to speak (or at least write) excellent English when they choose to. There is a deafening silence, at least in the English cyber-media (and understandably so), from the Singlish-speaking group who could most benefit from learning to speak good English. If I were a Marxian sociologist (not the same as being a Marxist, nota bene ) I would say that this ‘good English’ group own the “means of production” and the ‘Singlish’ group do not. In or...
Read more