Placenta Encapsulation

The above picture is Ezra's placenta moments after I birthed it. I love placentas! Well, moslty just MY kids' placentas. They are beautiful. Look at that tree of life with the cord attached to it. This is what provided nutrients and sustained the life of my baby boy the entire time he was in my body. It was part of me, part of my child. I had burried Esperanza's placenta along the banks of the Washougal River after she was born. Ezra's I would encapsulate and put back into my body.

A few months before Ezra was born, I came across information about encapsulating placentas for the purpose of balancing hormones after birth. For some people, the idea of eating a placenta is either way too far out there to even consider, or, it simply makes sense. There's probably a middle ground for some too, but for me, it made perfect sense. I was concerned about the possiblility of postpartum depression or 'baby blues' setting in for a couple of reasons. First, though I'm fortunate to have never had to deal with it so far, clinical depression (Bi-Polar/Manic Depression) has plagued our family for generations, so I am at higher risk for postpartum depression as well. And second, I had felt more emotional and sensitive during Ezra's pregnancy than I had with Esperanza, which worried me that it could get worse after birth. Besides, what could it hurt, virtually all other mammals eat their youngs placenta, why not me.

The thought of eating Ezra's placenta raw though did not settle with me. Blended in a placenta smoothe? No thank you. Seasoning then dehydrating it and eating it as jerky didn't appeal to me either. Baking it at a low temperature to deydrate it, blending it into a fine powder, pouring it into tiny capsules and swallowing them like I would a vitamin sounded perfect! My only dilema was how to get it encapsulated. I knew I wouldn't be up to doing it right after giving birth. And the cost of hiring someone to come into my home to do it was more than I wanted to pay, though there are people that do it for a hefty fee. I pondered the idea for awhile.

At my 38 week check-up with my home birth midwife Catherine, I asked her what her thoughts on placenta encapsulation were. She immediately perked up and said, 'oh sure, we'll do that for you'. There has been little to no research or studies done on the topic of placenta encasulation to prove or disprove it's effects and/or benefits of it. It is well known though that placentas contain various hormones & nutrients, the same ones a womans body becomes depleted of after child birth. I also read a lot of personal womens stories on their experiences with eating placents, in various forms, and the benefits they gained from it. Catherine also gave me her personal thoughts and experience with placenta encapsulation. Women whom she had cared for which experienced post partum depression, the capsules help tremendously, for those that did not experience any depression, the capsules didn't do much more than maybe give a small boost of energy. So there you have it, my decision was made, I would encapsulate and eat Ezra's placenta.

After I birthed the placenta on Ezra's birth day, Katie, Catherine's assistant, brought it into the kitchen and began prepping it. I don't know exactly what she did to prep it but I'm thinking she must have rinsed itoff in the sink and cleaned it up a bit.
After cleaning it up, she put it in a steamer over the stove and steamed it for a few minutes. Here it is after the steaming. It shrunk.

Then it was cut up into strips and laid out on a cookie sheet to cook/dry out at the lowest temperature in the oven (the alternative was to use a dehydrater but I don't have one). After this step, we were given instructions on how to complete the process. We were told to let it cook in the oven for 12 hours. After about 8 hours though it looked pretty well done so we took it out. You can see the umbilical cord in the front corner in this picture. Dried in a spiral shape and with a string attached to it later, it'll make a beautiful Christmas tree ornament to treasure and keep forever.

After the cooked pieces of placenta cooled off, we put them in the fridge for awhile so we could all rest. The next day, my sister Geneva began the process of grinding the pieces of placenta up and filling the vegetable based capsules. The 'jerky' look-a-like placenta pieces are in the container on the counter.It was tedious workShe used my coffee grinder to grind up the pieces into a fine powder. The next time we ground up coffee beans and made coffee, I think we all drank a bit of placenta. Filling the capsules with the encapsulating kit I had

Dosage: 2 capsules, 3 times a day for the first 3 days after birth. Then, take them as needed - when feeling down or tired.It has been 4+ months since Ezra's birth and I'm happy to report I have had no depression issues. The capsules lasted me about two months. I stopped taking them consistently after the first month, then just finished them off here and there because it seemed like the right thing to do. I really can't say one way or another if they helped or not but I'm glad I did it. There's no way to predict if a woman will experience post partum depresion or not. I encourage anyone, concerned or not about it, to encapsulate their placenta just in case. I've heard that you can freeze them and they can be taken decades later to help balance hormones during menopause too!

Contents of Esperanza's Purse

Esperanza has half a dozen purses. A few hand made by grandma, a couple questionable purses and then the one she loves. The Hello Kitty purse her Uncle Tony gave her for her birthday is her favorite. Why? Because it's the last one I'd have chosen for her to fall in love with, thats why. She carries this thing around everywhere she goes! I don't let her take it to school or into peoples houses, it stays in the car. Every now and then she'll find a little trinket or something small that she decides would fit very nicely in her purse. At the moment, it's close to maximum capacity. Here are it's contents:

• A shark figure


• A monkey head plastic ring


• A blue container of bubbles


• Sunglasses


• An empty silly putty container


• A wind up Nemo bath toy


• A paint brush


• Chapstick she talked Val into giving her a few weeks ago


• A white mini-truck


• A pink doll comb


• A see threw container with blue rocks in it (music toy made at school)


• A plasitc S for Superman ring


• A princess figurine


• A cow figure


• Half a bag of Annie's honey grahams (they've gotta be stale)


• MY Burt's Bees lip gloss (there it is!)


• A green piece of candy she found on the floor at my moms house. To avoid conflict and compromise, I told her she could put it in her purse but NEVER eat it.


• Toy Story Woody figure


• A blue head band


• 65 cents


• 3 tiny hair rubber bands


• Date and Month pieces to a calendar we have


• A mirror

This was the first time I've dumped her purse out to see just what was in it. I can see the benefits to doing this on a semi-regular basis as she gets older. And I just had to share that so we can look back one day and take a look at some of the things that are most precious to her now.

Thirty-Two

Esperanza had her very first field trip scheduled for Monday, October 17th, my 32nd birthday. Every month Esperanzas class has a theme. This months theme is farms so the kiddos took a field trip to a local farm and pumpkin patch. Parents and kids met the teachers at the farm and we all went on a tour where the kids got to run threw a hay maze, pet farm animals, climb a tall tower of hay bales and took a tractor ride to the pumpkin field where they all got to pick their own pumpkin.

Runnin in the maze

Farm animalsEzra loved the field trip tooEsperanza with a couple of girls from her class, Lucy & KingslyGreat action shot of Esperanza jumping off of the bales of haySoft landingPumpkin fieldBirthday girl and her babeHunting for that perfect pumpkin There it is! The only green one in the entire field!And this was the last picture worth sharing before she lost it...after that, she was done with the pumpkin patch and field trip.
Later that day my bff brought us dinner. We all ate Thai food then the cake I stayed up baking the night before. It was a german chocolate layered cake with coconut pecan filling. It may not have gotten an A+ for appearance, but it was delicious.A few days before my birthday, Armando had stopped by the farmers market and got me some flowers. Here they are sitting with Esperanza's green pumpkin and a birthday card from my favorite aunt.

Ezera Rolled Over

Ezra rolled over the other night. From belly to back. I was several feet away from him when he did it the first time and said in a surprised tone 'Ezra just rolled over'. Esperanza took that tone as if it was a bad thing, ran over to him, said 'don't do that' and rolled him back to his original position. I explained to her that it was a good thing, him rolling over meant he was that much closer to running around playing with her. That got her going and before you knew it, she and I were both hunched over him, laughing and cheering him on to roll over again. And he did, again and again. I was able to capture him rolling over on video a couple of times. I couldn't pick between the two, and even though they take forever to upload, I had to share both. I could watch each of them a hundred times and laugh all the same. Both of my kids are so stinkin' cute and equally amazing. Watching them laugh together is the best feeling ever.

In this one notice how Esperanza says Ezra's name 'Ez-er-a'. I correct her all the time but Ezera it remains.


Good job baby!

Miss Opinionated

It was inevitable. Yet it happened a little sooner than I expected or hoped. Esperanza, my little fire ball, is opinionated. Very opinionated. On so many different levels. One example is her clothing. I can no longer pick out an outfit for her to wear without it becoming a battle. She has her favorite articles of clothing. Some of them go together well, some of them don't. She likes to pair things that I wouldn't. But, it usually isn't worth the effort to convince her my style is better than hers. So, as long as what she's chosen is weather appropriate, I let her make part of the decision on what she wears each day. It's usually a compromise. This is the result of yesterdays compromise.

An oversized t-shirt with a blue horse on it, blue pants and pink light up princess boots.Cute? Of course! Arguabley cuter than the outfit I had picked out for her.

Esperanza loves animals and her obsession with the color blue is only becoming more and more dominant. If an item of clothiing happens to have a blue animal on it, like that handy-down shirt pictured above (thank you Geneva & Anycia - I can barely get it off of her), it's a sure winner. Anytime I am shopping for clothes for her, I look for things in any shade of blue. Sometimes I can get away with a greenish blue. Otherwise, I risk buying something and her not wearing it, which has already happened several times. Currently, I'm on the look out for a blue winter coat, blue stretch pants and blue boots. Used, cheap and preferably from the girls section, but thats just me being opinionated, I'm sure Esperanza wouldn't care. For Halloween, we're considering cookie monster, smurf or a blue cat.

Oh, and don't forget that hair. It's a mess! It keeps getter longer and longer and longer. I'll admit, on days that we plan to just stay home, I sometimes opt out of brushing it. Yes, it makes the next days hair combing process that much harder, but so worth it. Esperanza really wants me to cut it. I think she's serious, so I'm considering it. On this such day, we hadn't planned on leaving the house, but then Grandma showed up for a very brief visit and I suggested she take Esperanza home with her. Off she went, ratty hair and silly outfit. When I picked her up a few hours later this is what I found...

The outfit just got 10x better and Grandma did the horrid hair task. If I had suggested a yellow dress with pink polka dots over an already questionable outfit (which I never would) she'd have turned her chin up and ran away from me. Because of Esperanza's firey attitude and opinionated personality, I'm quickly learning that the less rules I have, the easier life is for everyone. I kind of feel rebelious allowing Esperanza to do things I instinctually would never consider. All I do when she asks for something, before saying no, is to think of a good reason why not? Amazingly, most things she wants to do are harmless and I can't come up with a good reason to say no...so I've been saying YES a lot more often. Some examples:

"So, you wanna take the paper off of every single crayon, go for it! And break them into two? Great, you'll have twice as many crayons."

"You want blue nail polish huh? Well go grab a blue washable crayola marker and paint those nails blue!"

"Go ahead, drink the bath water after I've just washed both you and your brother in it."

"You don't have to use a spoon if you don't want, go ahead and drink your yogurt out of the container."

The other day I sent Esperanza outside because she wanted to sing very, very loudly in a playful, yet 'not so indoorsy' tone. While she was out there, I heard our neighbor girl ask Esperanza if she would be quiet. Twice. Esperanza didn't stop & I just laughed.

Of course some rules stay. I have things that I don't want broken or ruined, nobody should get hurt & there are a few 'baby' rules she has to follow. The house, clothes and bodies can always be cleaned. Hopefully my relaxed attitude about this will keep us happily entertained this fall/winter.
Before I end my opinionated review on Esperanza, I have to share a little conversation we had the other night.

I was sitting down nursing Ezra and asked Esperanza if she would go get me a glass of water. She said "say por favor mama". I smiled at her and said "por favor". She ran down the hall, stopped halfway, ran back and said "say por favor ______________ agua". I was speachless. I didn't know what she said, or what she wanted me to say because she said it in Spanish and I only understood the first and the last word. I stared at her confused, on the verge of laughter. Instead of laughing, I responded with "por favor get me some agua". That worked and I got my glass of water.

Guess what shirt is under that blue sweater?

Ezra is 4 Months Old

Where did the last four months go? It flew by so fast. All of a sudden my once tiny baby boy is now a big squirmy bundle on the verge of becoming mobile. He's not quite rolling over yet, but once he does, the days of him staying in one spot are forever gone. He is very strong. He's been able to lift his head for a couple months now, but the amount of time he's able to keep it up is increasing.Ezra is a very easy going baby. He's calm and comfortable during short periods of time in his bouncer or swing, following me around with his eyes. When he does cry it's when he's hungry, tired, because of the occasional fuss over teething or tooting discomfort, or just to let me know it time for him to hang out in my arms, on my lap or just on the floor with some interaction. Basic needs. He is usually very happy, even when I am constantly waking him from his naps and moving him from one place to the other to go places and do things. He still wakes with a smile, ready to do whatever. Poor kid is having a hard time getting a consistent napping schedule down because of Esperanza's school schedule though.

He likes it when I sing to him, but he usually laughs at me (I have a lovely voice). He loves to be talked to and played with. He will now grab teethers, toys or other interesting things when they are put in front of him and will of course immediately put it into his mouth. His teething hasn't let up any even though I've yet to feel or see any shiny whites. There are times it really bothers him and he's screaming in so much pain. It has messed up his sleeping habits too. At least thats what I'm blaming the no sleep situation on lately. As soon as I started to brag about how well his sleeping habits were, he began a new pattern of waking more often at night and no longer sleeps for very long stretches of time. He also doesn't just sleep anywhere any longer because he's become a little too distracted of his surroundings. It was nice while it lasted.

Sometimes when he's fussy and he won't fall asleep by nursing and/or rocking, I'll set him in the swing and he'll instantly calm down, take focus on something and drift off into dreamland. It's amazing and certainly easier than taking him for a car ride in the middle of the night (something I did with Esperanza all too often to get her to fall asleep).

And as far as car rides go, they have become much more tollerable for Ezra and everyone else in the car. When he is upset in the car, he'll usually take a binky and that keeps him distracted and happy. Other times, he'll fuss for a few minutes and then fall asleep. If he's already happy and Esperanza isn't next to him to entertain him, he sits in his seat and talks to himself. It's so cute.

It's such a joy to watch him grow. We all love Ezra so much.

Esperanza's Paintings

Esperanza loves to paint. She asks to paint all the time. Unless we have something else important going on, I let her paint whenever she wants - though I limit her to 2, maybe 3 paintings per sitting. Not only does that mean she uses a lot of paint and painting paper, it means that I have a ton of paintings that continue to add up! I have one framed, several on the fridge, a few displayed in the media room and then a huge stack of them on the book shelf in the living room. I need to come up with some creative uses for them rather than just keeping them piled up. We've used a few as cards when we go to birthday parties. Unless I come up with another idea on how to use them, I think cards are the way to go.

Does anyone have other ideas on how to use these colorful keepsake pieces of art?

Purple Hat

I knit this purple hat for Esperanza a long time ago. It was the first hat I made for her (2nd hat I ever knit) and it turned out wonderful. Esperanza fell in love with it and wore it ALL the time...until it became too small for her. I actually had to hide it from her because she still really wanted to wear it. A few weeks ago I pulled it out of hiding and began re-knitting it, bigger with the same yarn. After just a few days, she's got herself a new 'up-cycled' purple hat - Yay!

Oh, and here's Esperanza having a bit of a laugh attack after she posed for the purple hat pictures...

Lion Jammies

Ezra is wearing clothes that are in the 9 month age range these days. One of the pairs of jammies he wears have lions on them and were also worn by Esperanza when she was a baby. I knew she had to of been a little older than him when they fit her because they have a little food staining on them. I didn't realize how much older though until I came across this picture the other day of her wearing them. So here you have an interesting comparison of the two in the same jammies.

Esperanza 10 months old &

Ezra at 3 1/2 months old with big sis

These two are so adorable