Placenta Smoothie

Before giving birth at home, I watched my fair share of homebirth videos. As disturbing as it was to watch a woman in so much pain, push out a baby, it was almost equally disturbing to watch the placenta just fall to the floor later on. Ew.

Delivering the placenta ended up being more stressful than delivering the baby. No joke. Delivering a placenta is something I never even knew about until I had to do it the first time. If all goes well, your placenta just sort of falls out after the birth (like I watched in on the youtube videos), not right away, but eventually. Well, my placenta was stubborn. Maybe it knew what was in store for it!

I guess my bladder was way too full and for some reason, I had either the worst case of pee shyness or I just physically could not urinate. The doctor said that happens sometimes after giving birth. She ended up having to help me along, which was not so pleasant. I will spare you the details and get on to the really good stuff!

After the doctor helped me along, the placenta came with ease. It is pretty disgusting looking, but quite amazing. The doctor showed Justin all the different parts that were connected to me, to baby, what it did, etc. He was really interested.

Well, as some of you might know, Justin and I decided a long while back that we would have part of the placenta made into a drink for after the birth. We didn’t come up with this idea on our own. The midwife actually asked me about it at one of my last meetings with her before the birth. I asked her if most people she sees drink it and she said only one couple hadn’t, and they were Americans. I don’t like being the stereotypical American couple, so I thought, “When else is it okay to drink your placenta?? I’ll do it!” Justin was all for it actually, which totally surprised me.

After a huge conversation about this on Facebook, with most people thinking that we were absolutely crazy, I decided I now HAD to do this. Am I really a crazy person for doing something that is traditional in other cultures or people groups? And who cares anyways?! In my opinion people need to stop doing things because it is or isn’t culturally acceptable and do what they want because it is healthy or fun or a new experience. I’m not saying to be immoral and get crazy, but this is something that doesn’t hurt anyone, if anything it can be helpful with postpartum depression, bleeding, and other things as well!

So it’s true. The midwife squeezed some fresh oranges, cut off a small part of the placenta, and used a hand mixer to mix it all up into a frothy drink. “What did it taste like,” you ask. I say it tasted like orange juice with a bloody aftertaste. Justin says it tasted like orange juice with a penny aftertaste. I guess he’s been eating pennies?? I wonder if it was all worth it. I’m not sure. It definitely didn’t hurt anything. I didn’t suffer with depression after and I didn’t bleed to death. I thought it was a fun experience to tell about at the least!

Cheers!

(I know this isn’t the best picture, but I just gave birth, without medication, to an almost nine pound baby so I am allowed to look tore up)