I have a placenta in my fridge!

TO Doula · 09-22-2009, 10:06 AM

I spoke to a client last week about doing her placenta. She was due in a couple of weeks and I wasn't planning to bring it up, but they were talking about the pros and cons of staying home vs birthing in the hospital (their midwife was fine with them making the decision in labour) and her husband joked that the problem with birthing at home was that they'd have to figure out what to do with the placenta! So I said...

So she had the baby early, and I now have a placenta in my fridge.

I'm off to buy a dehydrator, since I haven't assembled all of my equipment yet! Last week I ordered capsules and a filler via eBay since I haven't been able to find a source of veggie caps here, so I'm probably not going to have those in time. I can get gelatin caps, so I may have to try your hand-filling method, Hallie! I don't know if the mama will even want the capsules, but I'm going do the prep all the way through as learning.

I'm also doing this at my home. The last thing this dad wants is placenta preparation going on in his kitchen

! The next booked placenta is going to be the same way. The mom hasn't decided whether she's even going to tell her spouse it's being done, so I'm not going to do it at her place.

I'm excited, so you get to hear about it!

amymaew · 09-22-2009, 10:42 AM

You need this then!

http://www.zazzle.com/i_have_a_place...03061760008389

And I got veggie caps online - from www.capsuline.com Super quick shipping, easy to order....

TO Doula · 09-22-2009, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by amymaew

You need this then!
http://www.zazzle.com/i_have_a_place...03061760008389

Ooh, subtle, I like it.

Quote:

And I got veggie caps online - from www.capsuline.com Super quick shipping, easy to order....

Since I needed everything, I ordered this: http://tinyurl.com/n65hnl. I came across the company you reference when I was doing my research, and I didn't go with them partly because you have to set up an account to even get a shipping estimate!

Being in Canada and the majority of suppliers of anything being in the US, shipping is often the deciding factor when ordering stuff. Two different companies will charge similar prices for an item, but one will charge $8 to ship while another charges $30. We'll just have to see how long it takes to get here. I think I made the purchase on Thursday or Friday, so it probably went out yesterday (Monday). Could be here Friday, could be here in a month. You'd think I was in some remote location rather than the biggest city in the country that is the US's largest trading partner. Grr.

amymaew · 09-22-2009, 11:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rean

Ooh, subtle, I like it.

Since I needed everything, I ordered this: http://tinyurl.com/n65hnl. I came across the company you reference when I was doing my research, and I didn't go with them partly because you have to set up an account to even get a shipping estimate!

Being in Canada and the majority of suppliers of anything being in the US, shipping is often the deciding factor when ordering stuff. Two different companies will charge similar prices for an item, but one will charge $8 to ship while another charges $30. We'll just have to see how long it takes to get here. I think I made the purchase on Thursday or Friday, so it probably went out yesterday (Monday). Could be here Friday, could be here in a month. You'd think I was in some remote location rather than the biggest city in the country that is the US's largest trading partner. Grr.

Oh yeah - I didn't realize you were in Canada. Makes sense

raeben · 09-22-2009, 06:27 PM

you are probably smart enough to have already figured this out but i totally wasted 15 bucks the first time i bought caps because i got the wrong size. word to the wise.

congrats on the placenta client - just make sure your family knows that isn't steak in the fridge!

Hallielynn01 · 09-22-2009, 10:32 PM

good luck, if you end up doing it by hand, what ended up working for me was holding the larger part of the capsul in my left fingers, bury it in the powder and push powder in with right finger to fill, then cap. Worked well, make little mess. Only tough part really was not squeezing too tight since the gloves would make the capsuls pop right out of my fingers!

for what its worth

TO Doula · 09-23-2009, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeben

you are probably smart enough to have already figured this out but i totally wasted 15 bucks the first time i bought caps because i got the wrong size. word to the wise.

Oh, I'm smart enough to figure out all new ways of screwing things up! In what way were the caps the wrong size? D'you mean to fit a filler thingy? I've ordered a set with a machine and a bunch of caps, so I'll have to pay attention to size when it's time to reorder. I ordered 00s, because that was the size I'd seen mentioned elsewhere, but those are really big, I think, and I've wondered if it would make sense to go smaller and make a larger number of capsules. Any thoughts?

Quote:

congrats on the placenta client - just make sure your family knows that isn't steak in the fridge!

Heh. Unlikely, since it's a veggie household. I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse! It's way at the back, but if Youngest Child were at home that's were he'd go digging around to find the good beer. Hah - maybe that would be a good way to convince him to buy his own!

raeben · 09-23-2009, 04:26 AM

yeah, i bought a bunch of the 0 size for my 00 size machine and didn't figure it out till the receipt was long gone and i needed the right size caps RIGHT THEN.

also a friend gave me a bunch of empty caps that she had but they are super tiny - i could probably almost fit two of them inside a 00 cap. they really don't fit my machine but i thought if i ever got desperate and had to do them by hand then i could tell the client she got like 300+ pills from her placenta.

TO Doula · 09-25-2009, 11:55 AM

So my package came today - and instead of a capsule filler and caps it contained a bag of barley grass powder and a packing slip for some guy in Portugal!

I was so excited that it had arrived so quickly! I thought I'd call my client and see how she's doing day 5 pp, and if she was crashing I'd offer her the capsules (she didn't ask for them, they've just donated their placenta for me to learn on). Can't do that now.

raeben · 09-25-2009, 08:43 PM

oh man, thats a bummer! hopefully they will replace it with the right items right away.

just put the dried pieces in a ziplock and they should be fine till the caps and machine arrive.

i'd love to hear your experience of doing your first placenta too!

TO Doula · 09-26-2009, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raeben

oh man, thats a bummer! hopefully they will replace it with the right items right away.

just put the dried pieces in a ziplock and they should be fine till the caps and machine arrive.

I went ahead and powered it, and put the powder in a ziplock and put it in the freezer. I was surprised that the powdered placenta still had a distinct odour, so for some reason I thought the freezer would be best. Although as I'm typing this I'm realizing that there is little significant difference between leaving the powder in a ziplock on the counter and leaving the filled capsules in a jar on the counter, so I suppose the freezer part is unnecessary.

Quote:

i'd love to hear your experience of doing your first placenta too!

Well apparently I'm insufficiently caffienated to be writing anything at the moment, but I will do that. I also have a question for everyone about doing the cord, since the one I did came out looking awful - just dried tissue, not very romantic!

More soon.