placenta planting day

Now, I’m not really one to ingest things that I don’t trust, haven’t eaten before or that don’t come with the stamp of approval by the FDA, though in recent times, I have become a little more willing to experiment with food that leans more towards the riskier side (raw milk, fermented bread, greg’s home brew, etc.). But that didn’t stop me, before Miles was born, from seriously considering having my placenta dehydrated and encapsulated for me to ingest, like a vitamin. A midwife at the practice I was going to suggested that it halted the effects of postpartum depression and, though I was never officially diagnosed, there was definitely, in retrospect, a time of a few weeks after Joel was born that I cried every day for one reason or another and the winter after he was born was one of the most difficult for me that I can remember. So, thought I, may as well give it a go. Plus, I knew that other people cited vitamins and minerals vital to restore after going through childbirth.

However, all it took was the title of one article stating that there are no proven mental or physical health benefits of ingesting a placenta posted by a trusted birth expert for me to drop the concept and never look back. I didn’t relish the idea. Plus, it was expensive. Like, 200 dollars for someone to do it.

So, after Miles was born and the placenta soon followed, the nurse and midwife asked me if I wanted it. I said yes. They asked if I planned to encapsulate it, because then it would have to be put on ice, otherwise it could just be wrapped up in a bucket and bag and hang out at room temperature, which is what I ended up doing with it. We brought it home and stuffed it in the freezer which is where it has been for two months.

“What the hell do you do with a placenta?” I asked a friend the other day. She shrugged her shoulders, always abandoning her own to the hospital to be disposed of as medical waste like most other people. Sure, saying you want to keep your placenta is one thing (all the cool kids are keeping their placentas? “hell yeah, I’m keeping my placenta!”). Having it take up freezer space for many weeks and then figuring out what to do with it is another.

I went to Greg and vented the issue. “I got it,” he said, “Next weekend, we’ll go out to Wildtype, get a shrub and plant it on top of the placenta.” (for those that don’t know, Wildtype is a native plant nursery that has helped us in our journey to becoming the neighborhood weirdos with a jungle for a front lawn). I agreed to this plan. My mom offered to let me plant it at her house so that it would always be on family property. “Nah, that’s ok,” I said, not wanting to get other people involved in my placenta project, though knowing that we probably won’t be living here too much longer and will therefore be leaving our placenta and our plant to the care and protection of strangers but we’ll cross that emotional bridge when we come to it, I say.

“You pick out the plant,” Greg said at the nursery the other day (for anyone who knows Greg, you might understand how big a deal this is. He is the orchestrator of the plants around here and I find myself a mere spectator watching his magnum opus unfold. So, the fact that he was “letting” me pick out a plant to place on the lawn was previously unheard of). I made a few passes and finally selected a red cedar, always drawn to grasses and evergreens myself, and as a bow to Miles red hair.

Yesterday, he called on a work break and reminded me to “thaw the organ”. Right, I said, and took it out of the freezer and plopped it on the hood of the car outside for a few hours. That should do it, I thought, a little worried about a potential smell once I would open the bucket, but you simply can’t dump a frozen solid placenta out of a bucket and our freezer is like a freakin’ deep freeze sometimes.

Greg got home and we went over a few spots where I could see it from the house in the winter and Greg commenced to digging the hole. It’s not every day you plant your placenta in your lawn. “Make sure there’s enough room for the placenta and the root ball,” I said. I felt a little nervous, like I was violating some kind of health code by doing this. “Ok, it’s ready,” Greg said and took the baby from my arms. I started looking around to see if anyone was watching, not that they could see much over our four foot prairie grasses anyways. Then I opened the bag and popped open the bucket, calling Ruth over to see.

It was…gruesome. There was a lot more blood than I thought and it was all different shades of red and purple, odd textures and with the limp and pale cord still attached. “There it is,” I said. Ruth didn’t respond. I dumped it into the hole after snapping a picture and quickly started to cover it over with dirt. Ruth ran off as I packed the ground around the cedar. “There,” I said, “It’s done.” Greg of course had to go and investigate my planting skills and then we doused it with about a gallon of water.

He put his arm around me, “Did you feel it?” he asked. “I guess,” I said. “I felt it,” he said. “Really?” I asked, unsure of my own feelings about the situation. “Yeah, it’ll always be there, you know? Part of the soil, part of the tree. It’ll be too much of a pain for the next owners to get rid of.” I sat down, “Yeah, but what is a placenta anyways?” I asked. Not that I don’t know what a placenta is, but why should it be emotionally significant.

In some cultures, the placenta is seen as the soul twin of the baby and it is buried in a sacred place. In others, it is something evil and is buried as far from the family as possible. One thing is certain, though. Through time, at least since the earliest civilization, people have wondered about the afterbirth. What it means, it’s significance, and what to do with it. So, we’re not alone, but in good company in our wondering. It feels good to claim it and own it and put it to good use. As fertilizer.

“I’m glad to have the freezer space,” I said.