We finally buried Em's placenta…about ten minutes after I had the brilliant idea to bury it on the uninhabited island in the middle of a lake in the Adirondack mountains where we conceived our baby. I thought it was genius. It would have been so symbolic and that way, we'd all be able to visit it, because someday I'm sure we will leave this house given how restless we are….and then what? Then my baby's placenta remains in the ground in some strangers backyard? Alex asked me if I was truly serious about packing the placenta in a cooler, driving it five hours to the Adirondacks, renting a canoe, canoeing the placenta and a shovel (and our baby) out to the island, and burying the placenta there. I said yes, of course, it's a brilliant idea and much more emotionally tolerable for me. Ten minutes later, though, we were in the backyard and the placenta was lowered into the hole in the ground that my husband had already dug in the 100 degree heat. And there it remains.
We didn't have an actual ceremony like I planned and hoped we would, but I suppose there is always time for that….and now we have spared all those who attend it from having to watch us handle a frozen organ. Surprisingly, this is upsetting to some people (sense the sarcasm;). I admit, as fascinated as I am with placentas, and as emotionally attached as I was to my baby's, it wasn't exactly appealing when it was two months old and frozen. Anyway, perhaps a year from now we will hold hands in a circle around Emerson's dogwood tree and sing songs and recite poetry and my hippie dreams will be fulfilled.
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Grandpa Jack wasn't as impressed with the placenta as
some of us were….okay, it was just me. |
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| What are you people doing to my womb?! |
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| It's all natural. |
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And then Alex's sunglasses fell in the hole….
next to the placenta….and I started to scream,
because natural or not, it's still a biohazard. |
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The biohazard bag took a little bit of the beauty out
of the symbolic moment. |
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| Are you done digging, Daddy? I'm losing interest. |
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| Just a girl and her tree. |
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