Diaper dilemmas

So Jeff and I finally finished our baby registry at Target and Babies R Us today. Well, finished as close as we can get because I still have a nagging feeling that I forgot something very important that's required for her to live -- like oxygen or something. But no matter what, if it's needed, we still can buy it. We're not going to a strange planet where we'll never be able to get diapers, pacifiers, blankets or really noisy toys that are supposed to help with brain development.

Anyways, we were in the aisle -- the aisle where our postponed conversations were going to come to a head -- the diaper aisle filled with Target, Pampers and Huggies brands of diapers. Tons of plastic and weird chemicals to keep a baby's bottom totally dry.

My inner Al Gore (yes, those Earth Day specials made an impact on me as a kid), could be heard screaming "Do you know how many diapers are in our landfills? Do you know how long they'll be in the landfill? FOREVER!"

Originally I thought I'd go with cloth diapers for my wee one, but after seeing how much water is needed to soak, then wash the diapers, it seemed wasteful to me too. Not to mention, the stories about leakage were enough to scare the hell out of me. I mean, if friends of ours, who are environmentally conscious gave up and switched to disposable, what chance did I have?

Then I did some research online and found gDiapers, which could best be described as a maxi pad for a baby. Basically it's a hybrid of a cloth and disposable, but instead of the dirty part going into the landfill, it's flushed down to the sewer system, where most poop goes anyways.

I'm willing to give gDiapers a shot before completely bagging it and going to disposable. I know that we make compromises as an adult for the best care for our children and there's a certain point where we make compromises with our ideals, but I'd like to postpone that as much as possible. I also see this as a chance to try and do something to make sure my girl has a better world to live in, not just now, but for the future. And really, if I can afford to try and do that now, why not?

But as a compromise to Jeff, we did register for a couple of packages of diapers. We'll also be getting gDiapers too just to test them out.

As for the whole registry thing, because I'm a privacy freak at times, let me know if you're interested and I'll get the information out to you one way or another.