Yes, I really did. And there's a picture to prove it.

I wrote the post below during my pregnancy. I will give the update on how it ultimately went at the end.

Placentophagia: More Than a Hippie Idea?

I used to fantasize about giving birth outdoors in a pool of water with all of nature standing by. I saw myself unclothed and wide open without fear – embracing the most instinctual, creative process I would ever be permitted to participate in. Elements of that fantasized natural birth remain at work in me as I prepare to welcome my little one. Part of embracing the simplicity of birth as integral to our physical beings is looking at the way mamas of the wider animal kingdom approach birth.

Most animals find a dark, quiet, unobserved place to give birth. They show no signs of fear; just trust in the wisdom of their bodies. And, of course, many animals will follow the birth by eating their placenta. Ok, so some of you are not going to be able to handle where this is going. Hear me out! While this practice is thought to stem in part from the need to eliminate scents that would bring predators near, many human cultures have adapted the practice for supposed health benefits. I thought about this in the past and it made sense to me. All that iron, those nutrients, and hormones are leaving your body – doesn’t it make sense that taking them back in would make you somehow stronger, more whole following birth?

But the notion of some vague ‘wholeness’ alone was not enough to make me think about cooking up my own raw body part. In fact, the whole placenta consumption thing didn’t come to my mind at all during most of my pregnancy – forgotten in my imaginative notions of birth. It was not until it came up in my childbirth class as a possible remedy for postpartum depression that my ears perked up.

Postpartum depression is a real and powerful phenomenon that I must confess I have feared. It is much more likely to plague women who have a history of depression. I fit that category. I have struggled with my thoughts and emotions to the point of finally deciding to go on medication for depression my senior year of college. It was a hard choice for me, but it made a difference in my life. It allowed me to have the stability to focus on the mental and emotional work I needed to do in order to pull myself out of beliefs about life and myself that I was allowing to cripple me. As I adjusted to the meds, I was able to slowly transition from weekly therapy, to monthly therapy, to working in my own mind. When I became pregnant the decision of whether to go off the medication was very trying. There are rare known side effects of SSRIs on developing infants, but also known side effects of maternal depression during pregnancy. I was deeply torn. I was ultimately able to go off my medication successfully by 20 weeks, the point at which known dangers to the infant are said to begin with SSRIs. It has not been with out some bumps, but for the most part my pregnancy has led me into a time of deep inner peace, strength, and tranquility. The spiritual and physical work I have committed myself to in the quest for a ring of inner safety in the absence of medication has, I believe, reaped lasting benefits.

All this said, I don’t want to return to that dark place when the hormones in my body are in the incredible post-partum flux and I am wrought with fatigue. I did some research, and sure enough there is some grassroots evidence that the hormone and nutrient rich organ that my body generated from scratch in early pregnancy can stem some of the ill effects of postpartum fatigue and mood swings that many feel is inevitable.

Once I knew this, I was sold on trying it, whether or not the remedy could promise anything for certain. Anything is worth a try. People turn their placenta into shakes, stews, and lasagna. But here in town there is another perhaps less disturbing way to consume your placenta. It would require putting out $200 (but maybe that would be less than I would have to ultimately put out for a prescription depression drug?) Specialists will come to your home just days after birth to dehydrate, grind, and encapsulate your placenta. These placenta pills can be taken multiple times a day and stretch over months. Some women even save a store for replenishment during their menopause changes. No benefits of the placenta are lost in the encapsulation process and in fact this form of placenta is apparently accepted and used in Chinese traditional medicine. Sounds like something even the most squeamish among us could stomach.

...So, if I can swing the money, I think I will be popping placenta pills each morning and night for a little while if any one is interested in a sample. If the price winds up seeming to steep to me, you are always welcome to come over to my house for a nice hearty stew. I promise it will be spiced to perfect flavor. =)

Update:

I have remained depression free since the birth of my daughter and feel that besides the normal mild swings of early postpartum, my hormones and emotional adjustment have felt pretty stable. I don’t know what I can attribute to the placenta. Maybe nothing at all. A greater portion of my thanks ought to go to my husband, strong family, and loving community. And motherhood itself has played a refreshing role in my life – taking my focus much off of myself and turning it towards the nurturance of another person. There simply isn’t time to dwell so heavily on my own thoughts and feelings. But for whatever it’s worth, I took that thing home, cut it up like any good piece of beef, solicited a little help from my husband in seasoning with soy sauce and Asian spices and added it to foods for several days. And, yes, Phil tried a bite, too. It’s not every man who sits behind you in the birth tub and goes along with your crazy ideas like it was commonplace. I guess I got lucky.

If any of you tried this, thought about it, or will think about it I would love to hear your story! Meanwhile, I'll be thinking up a recipe for next time. =) =) =)

Now what? When a sleepless baby starts sleeping.

Hobby – a foreign concept that is reemerging from its forgotten place in my consciousness. In nursing school I was so consumed with my workload and my singular passion for growing into the profession that I dropped most of the little dallying pastimes I used to enjoy in high school. I told myself when nursing school was over and I had real time off (not time off with the black cloud of what I should be studying and the desperate need to converse with people whose friendship I did not want to loose due to busyness) that I would start reading more fiction, maybe write a little here or there, take a dance class. But then I was thrown into the first year of a challenging, heart-wrenching profession in a new city and discovered myself pregnant just out of orientation. These two new identities – nurse and mommy – took up all my thoughts. I read pregnancy books and reflected on the life to come. I slept, worked, and processed the happenings of my job. Often I was too worn out with my reflections to pick up a book.

Then my new little life came along and the newborn period is wonderfully and magically consuming of your all. I started work again and every spare moment was loving on my child. She was a difficult sleeper so I rarely had a moment not attached to her precious body day or night (and I don’t just mean the peaceful, wonderful co-sleeping part, but the waking every hour all evening long to nurse and snuggle until mama was safely in bed providing the uninterrupted night snack). I stopped working and all the sudden there was housework begging for attention during every naptime. She’s a cat napper so I rush around to get anything done before she wakes.

But now my baby is almost 9 months and she is sleeping. Those who know Sharlotte and I know that this is a new thing, just in the last couple weeks. So new there is sometimes a bewildering sense that something is missing. She goes to bed at 7:40 and just sleeps. And I am here. And I don’t know what in the world to do. Phil is often traveling and when he is home he has a long list of hobbies to draw from. Should I study something? Should I just fill the time with more housework, because that is something that has no definite end? Should I relax totally and mindlessly in front of a favorite TV show on my little laptop? Delve back into fiction? Pick up scrapbooking? I suddenly have a block of time and the peace of mind to use that time instead of tearing myself up over the worries of a new job. I feel restful. I feel ready. I want to develop and grow. I guess I am coming into a new season of motherhood and while I miss the constant responsive closeness that defined every waking (and not sleeping) moment of the first months, I look around this silent house and think there must be something good I can make of these quiet hours.

But even as she sleeps, Sharlotte is on my mind and I spent tonight writing in her baby book and remembering her birth…

Playing catch up. The birth story must be first. =)

So my baby is almost 9 months but I am going to slowly catch up while at the same time addressing the now in this blog about my new world as a mother - the best world I've ever known. People often asked me in the early weeks if motherhood was a big adjustment. Of course it is. And yet nothing ever felt so natural, peaceful, and meant to be in my life. I feel a sense of belonging in this role.

To begin my documentation, I am copying in the birth story I wrote up just after Sharlotte's birth.

My little Sharlotte Paradise was born into the water April 28 at 1107 pm, making her among the small percentage of little ones who arrive on their actual due date! She weighed 6 lbs 11 ounces and has a beautiful head of black hair.

My contractions started around 10pm on the 27^th while I was working. I had told my husband the day earlier that I just had a feeling she was coming soon and my sleep had been restless and full of dreams about her birth. The contractions were regular but mild and did not demand that I take my attention off my work. I wondered if I should head home part way through the night, but decided to finish out my 12-hour shift as it was providing me a very natural distraction. In the morning before I left the charge nurse asked me if she should take me off the schedule for that night just in case. I said to go ahead and count me as ill but that if my contractions continued in this mild pattern or slowed down I would call in and come to work. I figured this could be practice labor and go on for days. My goodness was I wrong!

Things slowed down after showering at home and I was able to sleep for 2 to 3 hours until I began to have contractions that I could not sleep through. They were very far apart – about 20 minutes – so I would doze between them. As the day went on the intensity built, but I was able to relax the surges a little for a time by sitting in a tub of water with warm compresses to my back and abdomen. I found that I was feeling all the sensation in my back. After leaving the tub, the contractions took more attention and I spent literally the entire rest of my home labor in child’s pose with my husband applying counter pressure to my back and reciting Hypnobirthing prompts. This firm pressure was a lifesaver!!! I cannot imagine my labor without his words of relaxation and hands of strength!

We decided to go into the hospital around 9pm at which point the intensity was really picking up. I continued to need child’s pose while they filled the tub of water for my water birth. Though, alas, we had run out of the house without our carefully prepared folder of birth aid materials, Phil talked me through each surge with affirmations I had written and Hypno prompts from memory – I found envisioning filling an orange balloon with my breath particularly poignant for reasons I do not know and we used that image again and again.

Almost as soon as I sank into the water my body went into transition and I began to experience the contractions so powerfully. Before long I had the overwhelming need to push. This was the most startling feeling I have ever had – I felt like an animal being taken over a force I could not control! Even the noises I made seemed out of my control. The midwife reminded me to keep my sounds low. I thought of the lion’s breath we had practiced with in my prenatal yoga class. And certainly I was like a lion! In just 4 or 5 amazingly intense pushes my little Sharlotte came earthside! What an amazing feeling of release and emptiness when her body left mine! Because I was on hands and knees they caught her in the back and passed her to me through my legs. It was unbelievable to see this very familiar stranger for the first time! Her cord was wrapped tightly around her neck and was very short. Since I was in the water they could not just lower her closer to my body to remove it as she had already been exposed to air. I remember they very quickly took hold of my arms and lifted me to standing so that the cord could be pulled from her neck. She looked around peacefully then let out a cry. She was so entirely new – so intimate to me and yet so herself, so unknown.

She searched for the breast and latched on in her own accord almost right away. She has been a very good eater ever since! I am tired but incredibly full. She is my dream come true, my beloved.