‘You did what?!?’

01/15/2016

After my second baby, I got asked this a lot! ‘You did what? You ate your placenta!’

Well yes, and no. As appetizing as a blended up organ sounds or cooking it like liver and onions (note my sarcasm here!) I chose not to go this route. I am really quite a squeamish person, I couldn’t even look at my placenta let alone touch it, let alone cook it and eat it! That just wasn’t happening. But to have someone else touch it and someone else prepare it and put it in some wonderful little capsules, seemed very appealing to me.

After the birth of my first, I suffered from postpartum depression. His birth was so difficult and ended with him fighting for his life. Our rough start meant that I never really got my milk in as I missed the whole first day of bonding due to him having to be in a incubator. Life was awful with post partum. I didn’t want anything to do with my baby, I wanted to stay in bed, and I never wanted my fiance to leave my side, which is quite difficult for us as he works 7 hours away from home for 2 weeks at a time.

When I became pregnant with our second baby, I knew I had to do something to help with my postpartum this time around. I did so many things to prepare my body and mind for another long and trying labour. One of those things was to hire a doula! With my fiance working 7 hours away, I was worried that I might go into labour when he was away at work. Who would come with me to the hospital? My mom had already said ‘no way!’ after being at my last labour where both myself and my baby almost died. A doula seemed the perfect answer. On our first meeting she told us about placenta encapsulation.

Much to my surprise, my fiance was the one to say ‘you need that!’ and I honestly couldn’t disagree! So, we hired the doula and booked in for placenta encapsulation. The day I went into labour was fantastic! No near death experiences for anyone this time around! Our doula was such a help to both my fiance and I and in the end, I didn’t have to touch or look at the placenta!

She oohed and ahhed with the nurse over my beautiful and healthy looking placenta before packaging it up and taking it home to prepare for the capsules.

3 days later and our first day home with the new baby, she arrived with a beautiful bag of my wonderful magic pills. I was instructed to take 2 pills 3 times a day. I took my first 2 right away and within 2 hours my milk was in full force! Shooting out of my body!! I was so happy I could cry, I actually had milk this time! I wasn’t broken!

I continued taking my magic pills for 8 weeks (though I had to decrease the dose because I had too much milk) and by some amazing miracle, I avoided getting postpartum depression.

I would highly recommend getting your placenta encapsulated, but maybe don’t tell anyone, unless you are ok with some funny looks!
I live in Central Alberta and would highly recommend Central Alberta Placenta Encapsulation. They did such a fantastic job for me. Also a huge thanks to the wonderful Doulas at Central Alberta Doulas for taking such great care of my fiance and myself while in labour!