Someone asked about eating the placenta.
We saved a chunk of it and encapsulated the rest. The chunk went into smoothies. EVERYONE SHOULD DO THIS OH MY GOD. What I told people before hand was this. “Look, I have friends who have had PPD several times and then eaten their placentas and had a much easier time. And if someone said, “Hey, look, we have a number of case studies where people who stood on their heads and juggled chainsaws with their feet had much happier postpartums” I probably would have said, “Sign me up for upsidedown chainsaw juggling!” Because PPD is rotten and awful and I didn’t want to lose another postpartum.
So on day two, I was starting to wobble emotionally, and my midwife helped my sister prep the placenta for drying, saving enough for about 5 smoothies. If I were doing it over, I’d save only enough for 2 large smoothies, and dry the rest. I don’t know exactly what they did to the placenta for encapsulation, Amanda Moore could give specifics. But the raw bit, they cut into 1-inch chunks, and made smoothies.
I’m allergic to some things, so they used Trader Joe’s Very Cherry blend with “something milky” and I think maple syrup. The best was when they used Organic Valley egg nog (it was the holidays) plus vanilla and the fruit.
It worked best to add the liquid, then the placenta, then the fruit, my teenager said, though it looks rather gory while you’re mixing it, you get a better grind on the placenta that way.
I noticed very little of the texture of it, the berry seeds covered it well.
What I did notice is that I went from a blubbery teary mess to “fine” within moments of the first sip. To the point where if my teenager saw me start to get weepy, she’d go make me a smoothie without my asking.
When the capsules were ready, I took two per day and had enough to last through my whole 6 weeks. I cried when they were gone, but adapted reasonably well.
Things that were helped: Less disasterizing. Great milk supply despite tongue-tied baby. MUCH better mood and more stable mood. I was much more resilient. I wish I had them still, as the farther I get from my postpartum, the more disasterizing creeps back in.
There were a lot of things that could have really derailed me in my postpartum, and the placenta was this magic support keeping me from falling into a pit. (My husband had to go back to work less than 24 hours after our son was born. I had a transport. Breastfeeding was really hard despite 18 years of previous breastfeeding support experience, 8 1/2 years of previous personal breastfeeding experience and a special needs, low tone baby prior to him. I had fibro flares from the time he was born at the rate of a couple per week for a very long time.) But it was by far my best postpartum. And I could feel the difference after taking a capsule or drinking a smoothie. AFter about 4 days, the capsules were stronger than the smoothies, the first days the smoothies were stronger.
If it was the placebo effect? FINE. Sign me up for more of that shit.
ETA: I don’t have pictures because it was prepped too quickly for me to get them. But I did take pics of Shiny’s, which is fascinating. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9574521@N08/sets/72157631633493608/
