It’s OK…They’re Not THOSE Peaches

Placenta Peaches — 2010

Kitt showing her true feelings of the trek — 2013

So, our peach tree died. Yes, THAT peach tree. The one that three years ago my husband and young daughter planted above my placenta.

I can’t help but take this a bit to heart. I mean, that placenta nourished my daughter for her entire gestation, and the damn thing can’t even keep a tree alive? Fortunately, my daughter is fine (although looking at her current outfit, you may question my idea of “fine”).

The Placenta Beech Tree

If I am to be completely honest, my placenta was not entirely faulty. As of now, where the peach tree once stood, a beech tree has taken root.

I know some greater message lies in that tree somewhere — something related to that Rolling Stones hymn about getting what you need, but regardless it is hard not to take the death of the original tree personally.

This year, after enjoying peaches from a friend’s tree, we decided to give peach planting another try. This time (thankfully) placenta-less. Kitt and Xandy “suited-up” and headed to plant out near our apple trees.

Kitt following her dad to the new planting spot.

“Supervising” the planting process.

The finished product.

This year we are told that we may get a few peaches. After all of this, those better taste like nirvana. I’m just saying.

Don’t Eat the Peaches

As I mentioned in my first post, I recently gave birth to an amazing little girl: Kitt. Her actual name is Katharine, but when Eartha Kitt passed away during my pregnancy, I had to convince my husband not to call her Eartha (it was a difficult fight, trust me), and so I compromised with “Kitt.” She is an amazing little girl, and motherhood thus far has been an unexpected albeit wonderful challenge.

Much like it was a difficult fight not naming my daughter after Catwoman (or the big globe at the Delorme store off I-95), it was a battle of what to do with my placenta. That’s right: my placenta. I was completely ok with allowing it to be considered biowaste and having it tossed away or incinerated with all of the other body parts, but my husband had other ideas.

“Let’s bury it under a tree.”

“Seriously? A tree?? What if the dogs dig it up????”

“Come on, it will be fun, then the kid will have her own tree.” That’s right, my husband calls his daughter “kid.” “It’s easier that way…you know, ‘kid’, ‘dog’, ‘wife…’ ” ” Don’t get me started on the last one…

“She can have a tree without a freaking placenta underneath it.”

“It won’t be the same.”

Needless to say, I was not victorious in this battle.

According to my husband, the nutrients in the placenta would make amazing fertilizer for the tree.  So upon admittance to the hospital, he smiled and told the nurse that we wanted to keep the placenta.

“Really? For what?”

I have since learned that some women cook and eat their own placenta (mostly in pill form) to help stave off post-partum depression. I am sure she was wondering if that were the case.

“We are going to plant a tree over it.”

“Of course you are…”

So, the hospital kindly put the placenta in a white tupperware container to be frozen until we were ready to use it. For the entire winter I was then forced to root around the thing when getting meat from our chest freezer. There were more than a few nights when I decided on take out instead of braving the freezer.

This spring I got the chance to see a cow placenta (****WARNING — Next picture is not for the faint-hearted****) While this is not the actual placenta I saw, this is a close facsimile and should help to demonstrate just how disgustuing this whole thing is:

That’s it — that’s what I saw, and that (a little smaller of course) is what my husband was planning to plant under a peach tree for our daughter.

I told him that I would have nothing to do with it. I was not going to hold a shovel, the baby, or any human tissue. I couldn’t help but hold the camera, however. So off we went.

There go Xandy and Kitt, off to plant the placenta, I mean peach tree.

 Yup, that is exactly what you think it is. My tough farmer husband gagged a bit while he was putting it into the ground.

There’s the peach tree getting ready to suck up all of the nutrients I am sure.

There they are — Kitt and her proud papa in some sort of perverted American Gothic pose. It’s officially done. The tree has actually now begun to sprout leaves. I wonder how many years it will take before peaches emerge.

I overheard my sister talking to one of her friends the other day — “If ever you are over to Sherry’s and she offers you peach cobbler, or peach pie, or peach preserves, DON’T EAT THEM!” I was a little offended, I mean –what does she have against my placenta??