You did WHAT with your placenta??

Dear World,
After my birth experience, the thing people seem the most curious about is the placenta service I used. Placentophagy (eating your placenta) is actually growing in popularity among women in the United States. While it may seem unsavory, it is theorized that there are many benefits to hanging on to that fascinating organ that nourished your baby for nine months.
Here is my experience:
Research stage- The first question to come up when discussing my placenta consumption is always "WHY?" I'm a total dork about researching stuff as much as possible. When considering the placenta service, I first wanted to know about the benefits for me. I looked over the information provided on the website of our local placenta encapsulation specialist, and found that the biggest reason to take the capsules is for hormone regulation and to avoid postpartum depression. Seeing as I have a hormone disorder (PCOS), I thought this was a fantastic idea! Who needs crazy mood swings when you have a newborn to take care of? Not me. I was also secretly hoping this might help regulate the cysts that will inevitably crop up when I'm not taking birth control pills and/or Metformin. Anyway, the most popular way to consume the placenta nowadays is by dehydrating it, grinding it up, and putting it into little capsules. So you basically pop a pill with dried out placenta in it. This doesn't really seem so bad, when compared to cooking it up or even eating it raw.
However, after browsing some message boards, I saw that sometimes people add herbs to the capsules, which could cause a bad reaction. I made sure to ask my service provider about this, and she assured me that it is 100% placenta in there-- no additives! Awesome. If you are considering this for yourself, make sure you ask your provider about it, as you don't want any surprises!
If you would like to do your own reading about the benefits of placentophagy, I strongly suggest visiting this website, especially if you live in the coastal areas of NC and SC (specifically Myrtle Beach, Wilmington, Jacksonville, and Greenville): Placenta Works

Birth stage- You know about birth. A baby comes out. Then a placenta does too. The umbilical cord is cut and typically the placenta is disposed of by the hospital as bio-hazardous waste. So when you get to the hospital and forgot your birth plan (oops), make sure you look at all the nurses with your best Captain Crazy look and ask that they please release custody of the placenta to you. Then smile sweetly.
If your nurses aren't grossed out by that request (big IF here), then they might even be cool enough to put the placenta in the 1 gallon Ziplock bags you brought. (Double bagged, in case you were wondering.) However, my nurses were busy helping me breastfeed, so my mom got stuck bagging the placenta. It's a true testament to a mother's love, because she was SUPER grossed out by this. Anyway, after the placenta is bagged, you get some ice for your cooler (our hospital conveniently had an ice machine), and send someone home with the placenta the same day.

Placenta Preparation/ All the cool stuff you get: Our placenta service was done by Nicole Havelka, who is also a doula. She is a member of Cape Fear Area Doulas, and her bio can be found on their website here: Cape Fear Area Doulas
Nicole came to our house the day after I gave birth and prepared the placenta into the following products:

• Smoothie: A walnut sized chunk of the raw placenta is blended into a fruit smoothie. You have to get the ingredients for the smoothie in advance and keep it in your kitchen. Mine had frozen berries, frozen banana, yogurt and juice. The smoothie was brought to me immediately, and I drank it that night. The next morning, my milk came in. So that's giving birth by cesarean section Thursday night, and milk coming in Saturday morning. (Less than 48 hours.) Evidently that's almost unheard of and I'm pretty sure the lactation consultant didn't believe me when I first told her that. I attribute this phenomenon to the placenta smoothie, although of course there's no way to really prove it.
• Capsules: These were also brought to me as soon as they were finished. I take about one  a day, and if I'm super tired or moody, I take two. I am 6 weeks postpartum right now, and I have only felt the need to take more than one on two occasions so far. One day I forgot to take my pill altogether, and I was really tired and snapped at my husband more than usual. Oops. 

This is what a placenta capsule looks like.

This is the cute jar my capsules are in!

• Salve: I haven't really needed to use this much, but it is basically a shea butter/dried placenta concoction that you can use to treat skin issues. I have used it on my baby's tushie twice for diaper rash, and it seems to clear it right up! It comes in a very small container, but a little goes a long way. I am glad to have it on hand.

• Mother's broth: I ended up throwing this out. You are supposed to freeze it within three days, but I was out of my house for longer than that, so it was "expired" by the time I got home. When frozen into ice cubes, it can last indefinitely and give you benefits similar to the capsules, meaning it may come in handy for a mood-swingy day. 
• Tincture: There is a jar in my cupboard with a chunk of my raw placenta being preserved by vodka. It looks kind of like something you'd see in a mad scientist's laboratory. I haven't really read about what I can do with it, but I'd imagine it is similar to the broth. It came with an eye dropper thing, so I guess I can put drops of the liquid into a drink and reap the benefits. I am also under the impression that this one lasts indefinitely.

 My conclusion: Overall, I found this to be a very worthwhile investment in my sanity. I feel relatively energetic and pretty happy. I am recovering from a birth experience that didn't go the way I wanted, but I am able to look at what did go well and be thankful for it. I think that is a very difficult hurdle for many, and I like to think that the placenta consumption has helped me with that. Now, even though I don't have the super mood swings, I do think my PCOS is not responding to the capsules the way I was hoping. (I haven't found any research about it, so consider this a preliminary study for the rest of you.) 

So there it is, guys. That's all I know about placentophagy through my own experience. I hope this was helpful information for you if you are considering the service for yourself or a loved one.

Love,

Steph

 (Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with the medical field at all. This information should not be used to diagnose or treat anything, ever.)

Ellie's Arrival

Dear World,
It has been a few weeks about a month since Ellie has joined us, and I want to share her birth story while it is still fresh-ish in my mind.

WARNING: There are some gross details about labor in this post. If you're just here for pictures, go ahead and scroll down for the pictures. Not everyone is into the details, I get that. :)
Before:
During my pregnancy, I was obsessed with reading and hearing other birth stories. It helped me learn what to expect (the unexpected!), what to request, what to pack, etc. I had read enough books about birth to become a certified doula. My personal favorite was Peggy Vincent's memoirs about her career as a midwife in the 70s and 80s, and Elizabeth Davis's Orgasmic Birth. (Who wouldn't love a book with that title?) I had read enough to know that I wanted a natural, drug-free birth experience attended by nurse midwives. Well, I think there's a saying about making God laugh by making plans, so here's what actually happened:
Around the 33 week mark, I realized that my daughter was in the breech position, meaning her head was up by my ribs instead of down by the nearest exit. At my 34 week appointment, the midwives confirmed it via ultrasound. I was given a thick packet of information about things to do to turn the baby into the proper position. This included holding a bag of frozen peas by the baby's head so she'll turn away from the cold, laying in an inclined position with my knees on the couch and my head toward the ground multiple times a day, acupressure, acupuncture, chiropractic, moxabustion, and finally, attempting an ECV (external cephalic version) procedure at the hospital. Which, by the way, was totally painful and involved greasing my belly with mineral oil. Ew.
When all of these attempts to turn the baby around failed, I had to come to terms with the fact that I would deliver by cesarean section, because nobody in town delivers breech babies the good old fashioned way anymore. When discussing my options with the midwives, I made it clear that I wanted to at least go into labor on my own, in hopes that perhaps the baby will turn herself around during the labor process (which is a common occurrence as well-- leaving only 3% of babies remaining breech before delivery). I was also concerned about the most common complication with babies being delivered by cesarean, which is respiratory problems. Typically this is because the baby's lungs aren't ready for the outside world yet, as C-section complications can frequently be a result of scheduling the surgery too early, or a failed induction of vaginal labor that doesn't progress the way it should. (Again, because baby just isn't ready to come out yet!) After some discussion, I realized that my caretakers preferred if I scheduled the C-section. They said it would be a calmer, less stressful experience for all. I could schedule for as early as 39 weeks. (NO THANK YOU.) I finally decided to schedule the surgery for almost a week AFTER my estimated due date, to truly give Ellie every chance possible to turn around and to start labor when she's good and ready. (Because at a certain point, cesarean aside, you get pressured to schedule an induction if you go past your due date anyway.) This also made it easier to schedule my sister's flight into town from Chicago, ensuring that she would be there to share the experience. I felt at peace with my decision.
The due date came and went, as expected, and all there was left to do was wait for Friday, when our surgery was scheduled. My sister got into town on Wednesday evening, and we planned to do some shopping on Thursday. At 2:30 Thursday morning, I woke up with some contractions. They weren't close together enough to warrant calling anyone, but they were strong enough that I couldn't go back to sleep right away. After about an hour, I finally drifted back to sleep until about 8:00. I texted my doula to let her know that the contractions were happening and not going away. By pure luck, she happened to be working the OB rotation for nursing school that day, so she would be at the hospital in the correct wing all day. I told her I would let her know if we ended up heading that way.
I went about my business as usual, going out for lunch with my mom, sister, and brother, and then shopping for a couple of hours. After getting back to my mom's house, my contractions were noticeably closer together. She offered to let me take a bath to relax, in her enormous Jacuzzi tub, so naturally I took her up on that. While soaking in the tub, my water broke-- right as it started to rain outside. I got out of the tub and quickly got dressed to get ready to go to the hospital.
I tried calling my husband a few times, but no answer. He was in a meeting. We drove over to our house (he works from home) to get him. I marched up the stairs and pounded on the door and told him to meet us at the hospital with our car. It was about 3:30.
Hospital:
We got to the hospital around 4:00, where my doula was waiting for us at the door. After I was admitted to a labor room, the receptionist brought a pile of paperwork for me to fill out. I told her that I had already submitted the pre-registration forms three weeks ago so I didn't have to fill anything out. She didn't seem to care and I had to fill these forms out anyway while dealing with increasingly strong contractions. Lovely.
I was given a hospital gown to change into, and was put in a bed so I could get a monitor hooked to me. There was meconium (baby poo) in my fluids when my water broke, so I had to have a monitor strapped to me at all times in the confines of an increasingly uncomfortable hospital bed. I was hooked up to an IV. Two of my midwives (Susan and Mary) showed up to check on us. My cervix was dilated 3 centimeters when they checked at 5:00. They conducted an ultrasound to see if Ellie turned from the labor (although I was still pretty sure she hadn't). She was still breech, so they started communicating with the surgery team about how quickly they could get me to the operating room. I was told that because I had lunch around noon, we had to wait until 8:00 PM before I could be given anesthesia for the surgery. So we had to sit around and wait for three hours while my contractions steadily picked up. Awesome.
On the bright side, we found Seinfeld playing on TV. It was a welcome distraction between me moaning like a banshee. As it turned out, I progressed so quickly that we didn't have to wait the whole three hours. I was wheeled back to the operating room around 7:00, and by then I was 7 centimeters dilated with contractions coming every minute or two. Mom was permitted to be back there with me, and my midwife Mary had taken some fabulous pictures for us.
Ellie Thora was born at 7:45 on May 29th. She came during a thunderstorm, on a Thursday. She picked her own time, so I was satisfied with the experience. There were zero complications and I was able to hold her as soon as she was cleaned up.

Here are some pictures!

Ellie was born butt first! The guy standing in the background is the anesthesiologist. He narrated the whole thing for me (since I couldn't see what was going on). Also, this tool in the lower left corner looks like a metal shoehorn. I'm pretty sure it was used like one, too. Ew.

Here she is getting cleaned up!

I got to hold her as soon as they gave her a hat and blanket! They were still stitching me up on the other side of the sheet.

Recovery didn't take too long, and I was up walking around the next day.

Going for our first walk in the stroller!

That's all I have time to post today! At this rate, it will likely be another month before I post again. Next month's topic is placenta encapsulation! (I know, I'm weird, but it IS interesting!)

Love,

Steph

Possum Killah

Dear World,
It's been a good long while since I've written, and so much in my life has changed. First of all, I accidentally killed a possum last night with my mom's minivan. I was driving my husband home from Charlotte, where he had a job interview. I was pretty tired and cranky already, and then BOOM. My first vehicular homicide. I cried really hard. One of those long, ugly cries that restarts after you've calmed down for a few minutes. Ugh.
I guess I should probably update you on all my crazy life changes since the last post:

1. As many of my Facebook friends know, I'm pregnant! This was very exciting news, as I have been talking about babies for the better portion of this decade. Yay for that! We found out that she's a girl, we haven't picked a name (that's the battle of the century right now, to be honest), and I'm about halfway through the pregnancy at this point. Obviously I've been a bit moody (normally I don't think I'd cry about hitting a possum on the highway).

2. Last time I wrote, I was living in the Virgin Islands! Well, that has changed too. My husband got laid off on the week of Thanksgiving. I am now living the American dream (I am almost 30 and just had to move in with my parents.) I just secured a part time job at Walgreens, making 25 cents above minimum wage. I am waiting to see where my husband ends up finding a job before I look at applying for teacher certification in another state. So now we wait. (And pray that the bills somehow get paid.)

3. I suppose this ties in with the pregnancy, but I have been taking super good care of myself! I have started walking (on days I don't have to work), and have been enjoying the world around me in North Carolina. There is a plethora of wildlife I've been watching-- mostly birds-- and I can't wait to see what changes the spring will bring to my surroundings. So, in typical Steph-fashion, here are some pictures of the things I've been seeing around me:

A little finch enjoying a birdbath.

An uncommon sight in the winter time! This turtle was hiding out in the grass on a rare warm day.

Another finch-y looking bird. Not sure what it is exactly, but he's cute!

Napping mallards.

This is a crested duck. He hangs out with the mallards and they seem to accept him like one of their own. Usually birds just hang out with their own species, so its interesting that they've adopted him. He's been here at the lake for over a year to my knowledge.

Thrasher/trash bird. I saw one of these guys carrying a Rolo candy around recently. They eat everything.

The Ibis! These guys use their long beaks to dig for grub in the grass. They are fun to watch. 

So that concludes this chapter of my chronicles. I hope everyone has a safe, happy New Year! I will try to get better about posting more frequently. 

Love,

Steph