(For those of you who haven't heard this story... here it is... again)I'll spare you the long, boring story of my first delivery. Honestly, I'm three years out after my third child and I don't really feel the need anymore to relive my first in gory detail (lucky you). Don't get me wrong, at some point I did... just not now=)
Oh no... this story is specifically what happened after we got home from the hospital. See, I was one of those 'weird' people who wanted to take my placenta home because I was going to plant it under a tree. I had heard the idea before and thought it was kind of cool. Sort of an everlasting tribute to the baby and a very granola way of giving back to the earth (and all of that hippie hoop-la). So, get the placenta home (in a mint green, plastic bucket provided by the hospital) and we don't have the tree right away so what do we do? We freeze the placenta.
In our freezer.
Along with the ice that we use for guests.
Along with the chicken breasts.
(Don't worry, I'm horrifying myself. And yes, I've grown as a person over the years)
Several months later we decide to buy a small pine tree. But alas, we lived in a triplex and we didn't want to plant a tree in the ground there where someday we would move away and leave our placenta tree behind (wait for it... ). So my dear sweet husband buys a whiskey barrel planter and some potting soil for our little placenta tree and I put the placenta out to thaw so we could get it out of the mint green plastic bucket to plant.
The bucket, as it turns out, was not so sturdy. I came home that day to find blood (at least it was my own) all over the counter because the plastic had cracked. Eeeew. Yes, I know I'm a nurse but it was still freaking gross. Somehow chicken blood, cow blood, and pig blood are all acceptable forms of bodily fluid on my counter. But when it comes to humans... I have a strict 'no bodily fluids' policy on my kitchen counters.
Anyway.
Clean the mess up. Then the nurse in me comes out and I have to investigate my placenta because it's cool. And yes... placentas are cool. Judge me if you want. I'm past caring (okay, I care a little... but not enough to keep me up all night). We get the placenta in its bed of dirt and put the little pine tree in its new home. Pretty exciting right?
Maybe not. I grab the hose to water the new tree and what does it do? It bleeds. All down the driveway. After being horrified again at all of my bodily fluids on public display I quickly hose them all away into the dirt and clean up. Watering the little pine tree I'm thinking to myself that this will all be over with soon and the placenta will stop bleeding after a day or two.
Boy was I wrong.
Not only did it not stop with the horrible bloody show but then it started to decay and apparently there was not enough dirt on God's green earth to keep the smell from emanating through the planter because that little tree reeked something fierce. I tried to love the tree. I tried to keep watering it. I finally moved it over to the dirt in a corner by the carport where its bleeding and foul odor would be less offensive to the neighbors (I kind of felt like an oppressive father to a young daughter at this point, but what else was I to do? It's not like I could give it a bath and a tampon!?). Finally I just couldn't take care of my little placenta tree anymore. I had to realize that it had been a mistake to bring the damn thing home in the first place. It had been a mistake to plant it in a planter and not the ground. I tried to be a good little hippie mom but I should just get with the times and realize that I was no more a hippie than my mom had been.
Damn.
I so wanted to be 80 years old with grand children who would come over to the house and I could gross them out by telling them that their father's placenta was under that tree over there...
