There is a long running debate (with a seeming religious-like zeal to it) choosing cloth or disposable diapers.  Within each, there is a mind-numbing number of styles, materials, etc, which I will talk about later.  Sufficient to say the choice is personal, and, there is no wrong choice.  My wife spent hours researching and we settled on cloth diapering for various reasons.  There is a considerable level of preparation to break down the fibers and make them absorbent.  (That was a significant number of laundry loads; I hear it continues.)  More to follow later.  In the end, the choice that works for you is the choice for you so there no benefit tying yourself in knots over it.

When we brought our baby home, there was the new baby glow in all three of us and all was right in the world.  Eventually the natural result of feeding ensues with the squishy sound all seasoned parents know.  So we carry our daughter, before the crying starts, to the diaper changing pad and pull off the hospital provided disposable diaper.  No matter how much you are prepared for the rainbow of colors in the first bowel movements, the black tar just looks wrong.  We proudly pull out a cloth diaper and the three legged stretchy gizmo to attach it.  We also made disposable liners cut from old undershirts to avoid staining during the first few days.

Then the problem surfaced: with all the preparation we never did learn how to actually fold and put the cloth diaper on our daughter.  So after a bemused look between myself and my wife, we added one more reason to why we kept the just-in-case package of disposable diapers from the baby shower.