Organic-Ally

Wednesday: a bit hectic. Had to wait for fruit delivery. Then went to check out storage facilities for my stock. Back home to prepare parcel for dispatch. Son had his school cross-country. Got to the recreation ground after the post office stop just in time for son's race (Forms I and II) to start. They had to do two laps of, I don't know, about 250m, perhaps. Not quite cross-country, but a resonable distance for seven and eight-year-olds. In this instance they were competing against the Form IIs (age eight-plus) some of whom were very nearly ten years old (if they turned nine early in the school year). Son came in 13th, a very pleasing result as far as I am concerned. Then it was off to local store to buy hot cross buns for our fellowship group this evening. The evening ended quite late but cloth is not presenting any problems. Back to Organic-Ally .

Tuesday: I am forgetting that I am using cloth. Changed pad and liner in the morning. Soaked other pad and liner while I went off to church to help run an Easter party. Washed the pad and liner with some bedding, son's swim towel, etc. Nothing to it. (Everything came up clean despite it being still 'stained' pre-wash.) Carried on pretty much as usual. Deadly boring. Am I converted? Back to Organic-Ally .

Monday: back at school, office, etc for all. Long liner feeling a bit bulky. Soaked it and swopped for a clean regular liner. School 'run' -- walk in my case. Waited around to check with the new chairman that she's OK with the Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow. Also handed over a special fruit bar for boy with severe food allergies. Back home to prepare address labels for all the parcels to go later this afternoon. Oops! time to move on to H's house. Prayer meeting with my ladies in the morning. So many health and homelessness issues to pray over. Back home for a few minutes. Printed the delivery orders. Oops! time to go meet Liz at the coffee place. It was her birthday yesterday and her day off today. Had a nice chinwag for about two hours! Discovered that I had suffered a big spurt while enjoying my chat. Pad had been stained. Back home. Filled orders. Post Office run (ie walk). Back home. School run (ie walk). After dinner, swopped a new pad and liner. No major issues with th...

Sunday: Liner was as I left it last night when I went to bed. Unusual as days two and three are often 'heavy' days. Some cloth users have noted that their periods get lighter. I cannot see the logic in this. I suspect -- and I could be wrong -- cloth-users take precautionary measures to prevent staining and go to the loo more often. We bleed directly into the bowl and so the pads seem less stained and the periods lighter. Any way decided that I will use the smaller 'regular' pad with the longer liner. I folded it in such a way -- I prefer to hide the edging in whatever way possible -- that I basically have about four layers of thickness. Looked a bit bulky. Wondered if it would show underneath the trousers. My boys tell me it's alright. ===================== 8.45pm: Bleeding had gone all quiet it seems. Tiny spotting. That's all. I cannot believe it. This is Day Three!! By the way I left the long liner and pad soaking while we were at church. Tried cleaning off ...

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 fe...

Before bed I noticed I was spotting. Usually I would stick on a regular pad, knowing that the flow will not be heavy. So, took the pad out, and thought: hang on a minute, what about the cloth one? Retrieved a regular 'liner', folded it into four-layer thickness and inserted it into a 'long' pad. Took care to wrap my sarong round me in bed just in case there is a leak. Friday morning: liner was quite clean, surprised. Swopped the near-spotless pad onto new knickers. The Bridget Jones pants will do better. (Had a disposable pad been used, the near-spotless pad would not have stuck onto clean knickers. Yes, it would have been binned/landfilled.) Now I have a hectic morning. Do I really want to rely on cloth? Decided to stick at it, but put a disposable pad in my bag just in case I needed it and also found a little pl-st-c bag to store the used cloth liner. That was 6.30 in the morning. It's 1.45pm and my liner is spotted but still relatively clean. This is because I se...

So us women send more sanpro (sanitary protection) to landfills than babies do nappies. 17,000 in one life-time has been the oft-quoted figure. Hmm. Must do something about that. But I've had many excuses for not doing what seems eco-logical: My periods are very heavy since the birth of my child. Heavy periods means lots of washable pads and therefore lots of headache. I am nearly menopausal (the popular description these days is 'peri-menopausal') and do not have many more years of using disposables. At the same time there is one pressing reason to convert: even brand-name pads start to chafe after a while, so sensitive is my skin. Nosing around the internet once more on the subject it was clear that any inner protection is not my style, and our friends Hankettes in Canada produces a pad which they claim to be different. A few weeks ago something clicked. I felt I must give washable pads a go to see if they work. Hankettes sent some samples over for me to trial. If they ar...