How my new OB might feel about me taking the placenta home. My whole medical team has been expressing concern about postpartum depression given how my pregnancy is going. I said, “If I eat the placenta I’ll do ok!” Now I need to talk this OB into that course of action. Oh boy.

Bodies are weird. We don’t understand them very well. We don’t know why they work the way they do. We know that humans are one of  the only mammal species that doesn’t habitually consume the placenta. The placenta is full of good shit, yo. That’s nutrition. That’s vitality. That’s half the shit my kid stole from my body to deplete me during the pregnancy. I want it back, motherfucker. I need that shit.

But I’m going to have to walk the gauntlet of current mores and taboos. It’s TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Don’t act like this is some newfangled idea. I’m just saying. TCM has been doing good stuff for people since white people were too stupid to have doctors wash their hands between patients. Let’s not act like white medicine is superior or has more standing, m’kay?

There is apparently an Ayurvedic doctor near me who works with pregnant and post-partum women on emotional balance.

My city is so much cooler than I thought. I’m not sure these services were here 7 years ago.

Not that I have a lot of interest in seeing another medical practitioner. Good grief.

But the Ayurvedic doctor does placenta processing……

I fully believe that my postpartum period will go better if I consume my placenta. So I’m going to have to push for this issue even though it feels kind of weird. No I don’t want the medication you could give me for nausea… I just want your lack of interference when I want to consume an organ I expel through my cunt, ok?

If I’m really desperate I will eat more of the placentas I have left in the freezer. TCM says you consume placenta for a few months then you store the remainder till menopause because it helps with hot flashes. I’d much rather consume my decades old placentas to deal with hot flashes that take some other kind of pill. I’m a weirdo. So I’m stocking up. I will find it interesting in the future if I go back and forth between the varying placenta’s and have different levels of responses from different pregnancies. Like, FMC’s placenta was incredibly wet. The pills were hard to make because it just didn’t want to dry out. It’s been stored in the freezer for years. How is it going to work out years from now? (TCM doesn’t involve the freezer but modern touches abound through all customs.)

I sort of figure that with what I’ve eaten and where I’ve stuck my tongue… a placenta is genuinely not that gross.

It’s all about your perspective. *cough*

Ultrasound scheduled for Wednesday. Because we are so late on the anatomy scan I’m sort of hoping the kid will flash us and there will be very little doubt about the genital configuration and I can stop wondering about testosterone load… but I’m not going to ask and I’m going to request that the technician not find out on purpose. An accidental flashing would be fun though. Then I can pretend I’m not a nosy bastard who wanted to find out early. The suspense is killing me. It wasn’t as hard to wait with the first two kids.

I’m feeling a lot more like I may be done with this process. Pregnancy is so hard. I’m getting old. I know that many of my friends started having kids at the age I am right now. I don’t know how in the fuck they did that because my body feels like shit. Maybe it helped that they didn’t have older kids? I don’t know. This pregnancy is easier than my first two and I feel just god damn over this process. I’m not sure I can handle giving Lightning a buddy. And given how my oldest two get along like oil and water lately… maybe a buddy isn’t such a great thing. Ok, so they are mostly best friends and this is a phase… but it’s a phase that is going on too long and I really wish I were the sort of person who believed in boxing ears.

THEY FRUSTRATE ME SO MUCH. GENERATIONS OF PARENTS HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO INFLICT PAIN ON CHILDREN WHO ARE FRUSTRATING. WHY CAN’T MY GENERATION?! THIS ISN’T FAIR.

Ahem. I will not be hurting my children. BUT SOMETIMES I’LL THINK ABOUT HOW SATISFYING THAT MIGHT BE IN SOME MOMENTS. I WILL THINK IT! I WILL!

I love the way my children smile at me smugly and say, “You won’t hurt us on purpose. You’d feel too bad.” So no… I won’t hurt them on purpose. I am a klutzy fucker and sometimes we run into each other and we both think it hurts and sucks. But that’s different.

Life hurts enough. You don’t need to have your parents hurt you on purpose.

Your parents are going to hurt you enough even if they do their best every day.

Every parent hurts every kid. No matter how well the dynamic goes. There is pain. I didn’t understand that when I was younger. I thought there were parents out there who were so good they inflicted no pain. Life has shown me otherwise. All parents hurt their kids. The question is about how much.

I tried to cut FMC’s toenails last night. No blood but I did cause some wincing and gasping. I said, “This is why I’ve been trying to teach you to do it to yourself. I can’t feel when I’m in the wrong place and you can feel when it is the wrong place on your own toe…” I know why my kids are afraid of nail cutting. I’m not great at it.

This is why my children chew their toenails because it is better than having me trim them with clippers.

Sometimes I fear it is weird in a way that is a problem… then I shrug and think if that is one of their bigger problems in this life they are doing so well I can just smile and go about my day.

I think it is funny that the kids have been complaining about wanting separate space from each other so I bent over backwards to find ways for separate space in the house…. and neither kid will take advantage. Instead they follow each other around like magnets complaining about how their sibling won’t obey commands. It’s hilariously irritating. Both of them want to be in charge of the other so damn bad. I was looking at something yesterday that talked about bullying and about how it is really all about dominance challenges. Holy shit yes. In this house we are living dominance challenge behavior non-stop. I need to find a new way of talking about this with the kids.

I keep asking my kids if they want more classes away from each other. Do you want us to create more structural space in your life where your sibling doesn’t live?

Nope. They don’t want space. They want me to force their sibling to obey them. In both directions. Well I won’t be doing that. So instead… we fuss.

I PICKED THE WORST TIME TO GIVE UP HEAD BANGING.

It’s fascinating to me the way they both want space and want their sibling tucked up right next to them no more than inches away because if you are further away you might miss something and you need to see everything I see from now until forever. They treat one another like the mandatory witnesses for each of their lives. It’s lovely and so frustrating.

Even as I grind my teeth I smile. Because it is hard and glorious. This feels like what family is supposed to mean.

Once in a while someone will want to kibbitz with me about how inconvenient having kids is. I always feel like an asshole when I say that I didn’t have children because I wanted convenience. But it’s very true. I didn’t do this gig because I wanted easy. I wanted hard but worth it.

I learned that one from Sarah.

I think I can go back to sleep now. I ate my cheese. I no longer feel like I’m flashing hot and cold on my way to puking.

String cheese is the best substance in the world this pregnancy. Bless you, mozzarella. You’re my only hope.