Monday, April 15, 2013

Happy Birthday to AppleCheeks and qualify to WIN

April is AppleCheeks birthday month and they turned FIVE this year. We are proud to be one of their longest standing Manitoba retailers, as we have been carrying them since we started just four years ago.


Aren't these ladies fun!

You're going to PEE yourself with this giveaway!!

It is our BIGGEST AppleCheeks giveaway EVER.

Drum roll pleeeeease...








For every $20 spent on AppleCheeks products between April 15th and 30th you get 1 entry to WIN a Microterry Starter Kit!

This includes:
3 AppleCheeks Envelope Covers
9 Microfleece Inserts [you can also pay the difference to get bamboo instead]
1 Zippered Storage Sac
1 Set of Bamboo Wipes
Retail value - $124.50

That's not ALL! After we draw the winner of the starter kit, we will draw another name to enter to win 1 of 2 FULL TIME BOTH SIZE Kits [retail value - $850] from AppleCheeks!

So what are you waiting for? Click here for our full lineup of AppleCheeks Cloth Diapers and accessories. Don't see what you are looking for in stock? It could be on the way! Contact us to see.



Thursday, April 11, 2013

Honouring Mothers: Lindsey's Story


I had always wanted to be a young mother. Being an only child, I also wanted to have LOTS of kids, at least four, preferably 6. My husband and I got married just before we turned 20, and we started trying for a baby when we were 22. The plan was perfect, go to Europe for 3 months, come back pregnant!

Before we even left for Europe things weren't right. After I stopped birth control, things just didn't return to normal. I went to the doctor several times and he advised me to wait it out. And wait we did, for an entire year. At this point I got fed up with waiting and demanded he do something about. Little did I know how much more waiting I would have to do. I got referred to a OB/GYN, had an ultrasound. They saw something funky so I got scheduled for an MRI. Everything was normal, except for a few cysts on my ovaries. I got referred to another OB/GYN who was more knowledgeable with infertility. She diagnosed me with PCOS. I tried charting, and several medications before I got referred to Heartland fertility clinic, because nothing was working. Heartland is the only fertility clinic in Manitoba, so the wait times are very long, even just to get that first appointment. Through Heartland I tried more medication and had surgery. I was now 26 and nothing had worked thus far. We finally got to sign up for our first fertility treatment, an IUI. In January 2012 I injected myself with medication and had the procedure done. In October 2012 my miracle baby boy was born, exactly 5 years after we began trying.

Infertility was a very hard road to travel. It seemed never ending. It seemed hopeless. It was filled with questions. It was filled with hurt. It seemed like everyone was getting pregnant around me with the greatest of ease. Every new pregnancy announcement was another stab in the heart. I cried A LOT.

But here I stand on the other side of infertility, and I can truly say it was all worth it. Every step in this journey lead me to my precious Tallet Reid. Being his mother is the greatest blessing in the world and I would go through all the waiting and all the hurt for him a hundred times over. It has made me a better mother. It has made me a better person.

I am thankful that I had to travel that road. It has helped me to relate to MANY other women who are struggling as I have. I think my story can give hope to those who are still in the 'waiting' period of their lives. Yes I know the waiting is long, but there is hope. There is always hope!

Lindsey

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Thank you for sharing your story, Lindsey. Very touching! Besides opening up about her experience, Lindsey has also qualified to be entered to win a $20 gift certificate to our shop. You can enter too! Click here for all of the details. We hope to have our inbox [info@tinytreehuggerdiapers.com] flooded with entries - everyone has a story to tell...we'd love to hear yours!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

honoring mothers: what's YOUR story?

Chances are, the majority of you reading this are mothers.

Either mothers of grown children [maybe even having grandchildren already!] or mothers of young children or somewhere in between. Maybe you're a first-time expectant mother or you are a hopeful expectant mother. Perhaps you're even a mother waiting for your precious adopted child to be brought home.

Or maybe you're a mother at heart, still longing for your dream of a child to come true, wondering if it will ever become a reality. Maybe you suffered through a miscarriage [or two] but at one point did have life growing inside of you. Maybe you even gave birth to a child only to lose him/her in the days, weeks, months or even years that followed.

Whatever category you're in, you are a mother. A mother in action, a mother in waiting, a mother in spirit. And all of those roles are important; they all tell a story.

A couple of weeks ago I watched the movie "What to Expect When You're Expecting" [with Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez] and I was impressed with the various situations that they covered in that movie. From planned pregnancies to surprise pregnancies. From adoption to fertility treatments. From easy pregnancies to really difficult pregnancies. From miscarriages to a story of multiples.

It got me thinking that every mother has their own unique story of how things came to be. There is no ONE way to become a mother. A mother with a houseful of children running around is no more of a mother than the woman who is longing for her belly to swell with child. A mother with a child who does not share her blood is no less of a mother than the woman who biologically birthed her brood. A mother can be someone with her arms full...or her arms empty.


So, what's YOUR story? With Mother's Day coming up we thought it would be interesting to honour mothers by hearing some of the different ways you have become a mother [or are hoping to]. Do you have the story of the happy and busy Mom running her home with children underfoot? Do you have a story of someone who tried for months, or even years, to get pregnant before finally getting their miracle child(ren)? Do you have a story of adoption? Are you parents of twins - or even triplets? Would you be willing to share your story of miscarriage? Some stories are definitely more difficult to tell than others. And while we don't love the fact that there are heart-breaking stories out there, we want to honor those mothers too by allowing them to tell their story. And to give the chance for healing - either for the one telling the story, or for someone else who will be reading the story.

Your story can be about your journey leading up to pregnancy [or adoption]...or it can be about your labour & delivery experience. It can be about the pain of a miscarriage or the trials of fertility treatments. It can even be about those first few weeks and months at home after baby was born.

You can email your stories to info@tinytreehuggerdiapers.com with "MOTHERHOOD BLOG POST" in the subject line and we will choose a few to feature every week on the blog from now until Mother's Day. Posts will be published at our discretion. Every post sent to us [even those not published] will be entered into a draw for a $20 gift certificate to our shop. You can choose to use this gift certificate to splurge on yourself [which of course would be well deserved!] or you can choose to bless another mother with it.

**By emailing us your stories [and pictures] you are authorizing us to use them in full or in part either during this Mother's Day feature or sometime in the future.**