Why I Chose To Encapsulate My Placenta

As most readers of this blog know, I had a very tough time with postpartum depression after the birth of my first daughter, Callie. This time around, with Lucia, I was determined to stack the deck in my favor as much as possible. When I was pregnant with Callie I came across this column in Time Magazine. You know, back when I had the time to frivolously flip through magazines! I found it quite fascinating and shared it with Bill, who thought it was pretty dang gross. Through the rest of the pregnancy I toyed with the idea of placenta encapsulation. And sure it sounded a little weird but in the end I didn't do anything about it. I will never forget the moment when the nurses showed me Callie's placenta. They told me it was verrry healthy, but I will admit it looked pretty gross and I felt glad that I hadn't really done anything about encapsulation. But oh...later on I wished I had! When I was in the throes of feeling so tired, overwhelmed and like my baby hated me I wished I had a do over. I will also admit that I allowed Bill's squeamishness about the topic sway me a little more than I should have. But a big part of me naively said "I'm not prone to depression so I'm sure I'll be fine." Wrong. Luckily for me, I didn't have PPD as bad as some other people I met in my journey back to me but it was definitely a rough road.
So this time I wasn't going to let anyone deter me. I found someone who works with our doula and talked to her about encapsulation. It was cheaper than I had anticipated, around $200. That may sound like a lot to some, but when I think of the days and weeks where I didn't want to touch Callie, let alone take care of her and love her that is a tiny price to pay. When I think of how hard it was for Bill to see me turn into someone else who couldn't function it isn't even a question of whether I should do it.
One of the reasons I was so intent on being induced when I was week past my due date is that I was worried the placenta would go bad. Placentas do go bad, parts of it turn gray and it doesn't protect the baby as well as it should. After I delivered Lucia and the placenta we had to get sneaky. Some hospitals and in turn, nurses, are not very much in favor of giving placentas to patients since it is technically a human waste product. But our doula and nurse knew their way around the system. So we basically had to sneak my placenta out of the hospital in the dark of night! Once all of the other nurses were out of the room they double bagged the placenta and put it on ice. Bill wrapped it in a towel he had brought from home and we stored it in the car overnight until the lady could come pick it up in the morning. Bill made the exchange in the morning and the next day she came back and gave us the finished product. The placenta is dried, ground and put into capsules. Even with being a week past my due date, they got more than the usual amount of pills from my placenta. She told us the average is to get between 100-120 capsules from a good placenta, but she got around 150 from mine.

So why encapsulate? It helps normalize your hormones to help beat the "baby blues".  And don't get me started on that little phrase. Doesn't do it justice at all, but that's a different story!
You lose most of the hormones you have been storing up during pregnancy during the birth process. Its a bit like being a drug addict or a smoker and going cold turkey. The capsules help with the transition so you aren't going cold turkey with your hormones. Placenta capsules  also are supposed to speed up and enrich your milk supply and help in postpartum healing, increase energy and help with iron deficiency.You can take the pills anytime you are feeling run down or need extra energy because it is your hormones and works with your body chemistry. You can also save the pills for menopause when hormonal changes happen again, as long as you keep them refrigerated. Not sure if I would be able to hold onto something in my fridge for another 30+ years, but people do it!
So is it working? I think so. In terms of milk supply it has definitely worked. My milk came in a full 3-4 days earlier this time around. It is hard to tell how much of what I feel emotionally this time around is because I've been through it once before so I know what the warning signs are but I feel so incredibly different this time. It took such a long time for me to connect with Callie but I bonded with Lucia almost instantly. Of course I am still overwhelmed at times with a toddler and a newborn but nothing like what I experienced with Callie. I know the real test will be when Bill goes to work to see how I handle all of the stress. So I guess, time will tell!
So there you have it. I hope that fewer people will be grossed out by the idea and give it a chance or at least respect those of us that have chosen to encapsulate. I hope fewer people will have the image of a new mom ripping into her own placenta with blood running down her chin.
And when you stop to think about how many new moms have suffered in silence with PPD and how many children have been harmed because we call it the "baby blues" and tell new moms to get over it already, it really is a small price to pay. I for one am more than happy to pop some pills to make sure my girls and our family are safe and happy.

Toddler Trouble

I really honestly thought that I would be struggling with the newborn in terms of our transitions. But how wrong I was! My real struggle is with Callie. The first couple of days we were home with Lucia were decent. But lately her tantrums have taken on new life. Our bedtime ritual, which was once my favorite part of my day with her, have become something I detest. She used to be so great about putting her toys away after her bath but all week she has flat out refused. At first I was trying to use storytime to entice her to put her toys away but even that didn't work. And I hate the idea of taking away reading from her. Definitely not the message I want to send about literacy. She kicks, screams and hits at Bill when he tries to help get her changed. She has probably had more timeouts in the past week than she has ever before.
I know in my head that the tantrums and the new lines in the sand are all about her being frustrated at the new changes in the house, namely the fact that she can't have me all of the time the way she used to. She loves to ask "Up? Up?" at the exact moment I sit down to nurse Lucia. Nevermind that my hands and lap were free for a good hour before that moment. Then when the answer is no, down goes her whole body smacking her head repeatedly on the hardwood floors. Pretty much my only saving grace these days is that she goes to my mom's on Mondays and Fridays. It is really the only peace we have at this point. I feel bad that I feel relieved when she is gone but it is just so hard to balance an active toddler and a mellow newborn. It could be worse of course, Lucia could be as high maintenance a baby as Callie was! I am really trying to imagine how I am going to handle this when Bill goes back to work and I really can't even picture it! I hope that eventually Callie will adjust to the new changes. I know I just have to stand my ground. They don't call it the "terrible twos" for nothing!
Otherwise, I am just going to have to find some shifty scientist who will agree to clone me!

Anyone with two munchkins have any words of advice?  This gets better, right?

Lucia's Birth Story

 Our little Lucia certainly took her time in coming, but when she was ready…oh baby look out! I was a week overdue and feeling a mixture of emotions. A big part of me didn’t want it to happen because I remembered the pain of bringing Callie into the world and all the stress and problems we had once we were home with her. But another part of me was just so dang tired of being pregnant. Luckily this time around I was a good 15 pounds lighter than I was with Callie so the joint pain was nowhere near as bad. 

On March 13^th I had an appointment with Lin to talk about induction. We scheduled it for the evening of March 14^th. Partially because I figured “hey, what’s one more day?” And because Bill and I had one last date night scheduled. Silly, I know but we had wanted to see Hugo for quite some time, so that’s what we did. 

After my appointment with Lin (and my cervix check) I had been feeling a little “off”. Not what I would consider contractions or crampy but just kind of icky. We went to the movie and about 20 minutes in my contractions started. They weren’t bad, not too much worse than my Braxton Hicks so I stayed. About half way through the movie, Bill looked over at me and realized what was happening and started holding my hand. They still weren’t too strong, so we stayed. By the time the movie ended they were getting stronger so home we went. There was one particularly bad one that hit right at the moment Bill went over the giant speed bump by our house. I’m pretty sure I will never look at the speed bump the same ever again.

We went inside the house and told my mom, who had been watching Callie, that Callie should probably go home with her tonight. That was our plan for the hospital stay. Her bag had been packed and at Grandma Tere’s house for weeks at this point. Just before she got ready to go with Grandma, the little bugger put her fingers into the Vicks Vapo Steam reservoir in her humidifier and of course, put her fingers in her mouth while my back was turned to get her blanket and stuffed animals to go to Grandma’s house. I turned around because she was screaming with her mouth open. For a second I couldn’t figure out what had happened but then I caught a whiff of that unmistakable smell of Vicks. We tried to get her to drink some water to flush it out, but she refused. She did take some milk though. In the meantime, I was weathering the contractions  that were coming about 8 minutes apart and Bill was researching camphor poisioning to make sure both Callie and I  didn’t both need to go to the hospital. Luckily she hadn’t consumed enough for it be a problem so off to grandma’s she went after we watched her for a half hour or so to make sure she was ok.

We called Tara, our doula to let her know what was happening. By this point it was about 10:30pm and the contractions were coming fast, about 6 minutes apart. I got in bed since that was where I had labored for quite some time with Callie so that I could rest in between the contractions. Then the contractions were coming harder and harder. We called Tara again and told her we needed her to come. On our last phone call she had told us that even though it was the second baby, we had time but at any time if I wanted her there she would be there. On this phone call I told her I needed her. I was so happy to see her walk in the house. Bill was keeping me hydrated and held my hand through the contractions. We moved to the bathroom, the toilet, even though its not glamorous is the best place for me to labor. It takes some of the pressure of my joints and supports my back a bit. By this point I was pretty much in agony and didn’t know how much more I could take. This labor was so very different from Callie. Callie’s labor was so long and took a while to ramp up while this one came up so fast and hard it was difficult to deal with. Tara helped me with my breathing and massaged me to relax me in between contractions. After a few contractions in the bathroom my back started hurting pretty badly, so we thought that maybe she had turned posterior, the way Callie was. Tara told me we were going to walk to the bedroom and she would rock my pelvis to get her to turn. But the minute I stood up I knew it was too late. I told her I couldn’t. She checked me and said “Ok, time to go. Let’s get in the car.” It suddenly became almost impossible not to push. Tara gave me some breathing techniques to keep from pushing in the car. I was sitting on a pillow in the car when we got going. By this time it was about 1:20 am or so. Bill drove like a bat outta hell to the hospital and thank god he did. Again, totally opposite of Callie’s birth! A few minutes into the drive I was working so hard at not pushing with every ounce of strength in me when I felt something come out. I was terrified it was the baby. I told Bill “Something just came out and I don’t know what it is. And I don’t want to look.” But I reached down to touch whatever it was and it felt a bit like a sticky balloon. When I looked at my hands there was no blood so I figured and hoped to heaven that it wasn’t the baby. We found out later it was my bag of membranes fully in tact. Which apparently doesn’t happen all that often.

We got to the hospital in record time since Bill was driving around 90mph and running red lights.  Luckily we were driving at 1am not at rush hour! We parked and the nurse asked if I could walk to the ER entrance. Uhh. That’s a no. I didn’t even know how I was going to get from the car seat to the wheelchair. They lifted me into the wheelchair and the nurse ran us down the longest hallway known to man. The baby was crowning in the wheelchair. Again I was bearing down so hard to keep the baby in. We got to the room and I opened my eyes and I saw Bethany Monte! She was the midwife who had delivered Callie. She had since left the practice and was a nurse. I couldn’t believe she was there. I was so happy to see her. I almost started crying.

That look right there? That is "Oh, thank god we didn't have the baby in the car, or the parking lot, or the wheelchair, or the hallway..."

 They lifted me out of the wheelchair, my water broke, got me onto the bed, 2 pushes and out she came. There was a point after the first push when Bethany told me “Maria. Stop! Look at me! Look at me!” I stopped and she reminded me “Short pushes.” I must have been tearing pretty strongly and she knew there was no time for cutting.  Thinking about it later, I am pretty sure that her voice was the only voice that would have made me stop. We were probably in the labor and delivery room less than 5 minutes before Lucia was out!

I was so glad she wasn’t born in the car or the hallway and it is crazy to think just how close we came to that! She was born at 1:39am. So we drove from San Jose to Los Gatos and gave birth in the space of 20 minutes!

After she was out they put her on my chest immediately to get my uterus to contract because I had quite a bit of bleeding, just like with Callie. It was nice this time to have her on me the whole time, unlike with Callie because she had meconium and they had to make sure her lungs were clear. Bill got to cut the cord this time too. They stitched me up and got Lucia latched, bathed and weighed. She weighed  7 pounds 14 ounces. Much different than the 8 pounds 6 ounces they were predicting!

Bill got to cut the cord this time!

I did have some trouble with how much blood I had lost. When they helped me to the bathroom some time later I fainted. Out cold for a good minute or so. I awoke to smelling salts and room full of nurses. Talk about a confusing moment! One of my nurses later in our hospital stay summed up smelling salts quite perfectly. “ They wake you up, but they wake you up fighting.” So true! Its basically ammonia and it does wake you up that is for sure! I continued to have trouble with fainting for another day or so, but we finally got it under control with lots of fluids and food.

Second time around, everything is so different. It is nice to be in a place in my head to know what to do, to not be so overwhelmed with a baby. Nursing has gone so much better this time around. I am healing so much faster as well. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I gained less weight, or that my body just knows what to do this time around or the fact that my labor was so much shorter so my body wasn’t as exhausted or maybe it is just a combination of them all.

Baby toes!

Bath time

Callie meets Cia for the first time

All of our nurses were phenomenal. We only had one problem and that was with the pediatrician who came to check on Lucia. He was worried about her weight loss. We were still way under the 10% weight loss that is considered acceptable but he thought she was dehydrated. He seemed to confuse 10 ounces with 10% weight loss which is obviously a huge difference! He advised us to supplement nursing with pedialyte!? Pedialyte, the stuff I don’t even like giving my almost two year old unless she really really needs it. Luckily one of our nurses overheard what he was saying and clearly didn’t agree since I had so much colostrum coming in, it wasn’t like my milk wasn’t going to come in super fast. She couldn’t really argue with a dr but she could put us in touch with the lactation consultant since she technically doesn’t work for the hospital. She put us at ease and we all agreed that pedialyte was a really dumb move. Especially since he was advocating it because some people don’t like to supplement with formula. So pedialyte is better? No thank you. The great thing about the LC is that she was looking at the whole picture. Lucia had had several diapers on her first day so that was most likely where the weight loss had come from. The pediatrician came back again before we left, clearly annoyed that we hadn’t taken his advice but we really could care less. Especially when he was checking Lucia and calling her “Him” and talking about “Why are you crying, I didn’t circumcise you!” We didn’t say a thing, basically just waiting for him to realize his mistake. He eventually did and gave some lame excuse. I really wanted to say “I’m pretty sure female circumcision is illegal in the United States.” But we really just wanted to see how big of a hole he could dig himself.

We brought Lucia home on Friday and Callie came over a few hours later. I am so happy to say that Callie is doing really well with Lucia so far. I was kind of expecting the worst but she loves her little sister. She loves to smile at her and talk about what she is doing and kiss her on the forehead. It is pretty dang sweet.

Sleepy girl

So that’s our story of our baby girl who was almost born in the car and we are so very happy and so much in love with our Lucia Anna.