Organ Meat

A short version of my essay about my desire not to eat my baby's afterbirth appears in the current (April/May) issue of Fit Pregnancy magazine—check it out in your nearest OB/GYN's waiting room. (It's on the last page, accompanied by an illustration of a blonde lady eating a placenta with a bottle of champagne—the only way to do it if you're gonna do it.)

A paragraph from the original (longwinded) version:

I was pleased to learn at the eighteen week ultrasound that the placenta wasn’t obstructing the baby’s most likely exit route, and I was grateful in a vague sort of way that it appeared to be doing its hormonal and nutrient/waste transport jobs with aplomb. But mostly I gave my placenta very little thought. Like the varicose veins snarling up my formerly lovely lady parts, the unrelenting feeling of motion sickness, the barfing at all times of day and night, the wicked indigestion, the itchy nipples, the sore hips, and the squished bladder, the placenta is a necessary, unavoidable part of creating a baby—but no more in need of reverence, celebration, memorial, or ingestion than the amniotic sac or mucus plug.

Will you be eating a placenta anytime soon?

photo courtesy NinoAdonis, morgueFile