And Now, to Really Gross You Out...

Brickley and Oswell will be 6 weeks old tomorrow, and will have been home for 2 weeks.  Last time I brought a baby home (Seville, obviously), 2 weeks into it was getting pretty difficult for me personally. I struggled mightily with deep postpartum depression and had an extremely difficult recovery from a C-Section to boot. Since I had another unavoidable C-Section this time, and since I was warned that pregnancy and post-pregnancy hormones are twice as severe with twins, we wanted to do everything we could to avoid the dark days of last time. We were better prepared in lots of ways, but there's one thing I really honestly think made a huge difference.

It's like this... every mammal on the planet eats its own placenta after birth - except humans, for obvious reasons (like, the fact that we would barf all over ourselves even attempting such a feat, completely defeating the purpose, for example).  But there are rumors about eating the placenta and what it does for you. Like that it eases and speeds your recovery. And that it stabilizes your hormones keeping postpartum depression in check.

I had heard these things, but since the babies were born 2 months early - at least a month before we expected to have to think of any immediate post-birth needs - I hadn't had time to look into what is called "placenta encapsulation," - where they put your placenta in capsules for you to take, like any other benign, un-disgusting supplement, with your daily vitamins.

In the recovery room, one of the doctors brought my placenta for me to see. Its rupturing was the cause of the emergent C-Section. She knew I was extremely disappointed at not having a vaginal birth, and came to show me the signs of rupture so I could see, with my own eyes, why my baby needed to come out asap and why he might not have survived a vaginal birth). You could see the signs of distress and hemorhagging on the one placenta. The whole "eating your own placenta" thing came up then, and I mentioned to Jared that it was a bummer we hadn't had time to look into it.

The nurse looked at us and told us it was easy to do yourself.  "What?" She was from Russia or something, and I don't know whether this is more common in Easter Europe or she was just a hippie at heart, but she walked us through how to do it yourself. And bless Jared's heart, he actually did this for me (that is serious dedication!).

Step 1: Wash thoroughly (there's a video at the bottom of this post of Jared washing the placentas. There were two of them, in my case.)

Step 2: Freeze until you have time to do something with it (and/or so you can slice it later) (you could skip this step, actually, if you had time to work with it right away and planned the "blender" method).

Step 3: Slice thinly and/or puree' (Here is where it gets a little confusing. Russian Hippie Nurse told us to freeze it and then slice it very very thin, and then dry on a dehydrator, not unlike jerky. Jared tried this and it just wasn't drying fast enough and he was afraid it would go rancid, so he looked up how to do it on our "friend," the Internet. The folks he Googled were putting it right in the blender and drying it like fruit leather, so he switched methods and went with that.

Step 4: Spread blended placenta on a fruit dehydrator and dry.

Step 5: pull or chip dried placenta off the dryer, and pulverize it into a powder (blender, magic bullet, mortar & pestle. whatever works. I think Jared used our magic bullet).

Step 6: borrow capsule-making thingy from brother in law (Thanks Bryce!) (or get one at local Natures/Wild Oats/New Seasons/hippie food store), and put powder in capsules.

Voila! Placenta Pills.

These have been my friends these last 6 weeks, and oh what a difference they've made. Unless it's all in my head, which is ok too. Whatever works.

(WARNING:)If you're a glutton for punishment, and you have a strong stomach, here's a video of Jared getting the placenta out and washing it...