You're going to do WHAT!?

Have you heard about eating your placenta?

Did you just throw up a little in your mouth when you read that?

Yeah, so did I.

But check this out. It would appear that the placenta is rich in what is believed to be the perfect balance of hormones for your body, and by somehow ingesting it (and not upchucking) you can make huge strides in warding off postpartum depression. Somehow I doubt that other mammals eat their placentas simply to avoid the blues, but then again, I've never seen a mother cat sobbing in her bedroom while the kids eat dried up spaghetti-o's off the kitchen floor. I'm just sayin.'

Here's what they say are the benefits of "placentophagy:"

Your baby's placenta, contained in capsule form, is believed to:

• contain your own natural hormones
• be perfectly made for you
• balance your system
• replenish depleted iron
• give you more energy
• lessen bleeding postnatally
• been shown to increase milk production
• help you have a happier postpartum period
• hasten return of uterus to pre-pregnancy state
• be helpful during menopause

What's all this "in capsule form" business?

See, instead of trying to eat a 2 pound chunk of delicious flesh (barf,) you have someone who knows what the hell they're doing take your placenta and dry it. Then they grind it all up and put it into little pills, and you take them just like any other pill. And really, it's not so gross. Premarin, for example, comes from the urine of pregnant mares. (Pregnant Mare Urine.) It might be synthetic these days, but honestly, I would rather take pills containing my baby's placenta than ones containing horse piss. For real. (Although, even if it wasn't horse piss, I wouldn't take Premarin. It's hormone replacement therapy, which I'll never do.)

So this time around, I'm going to save one small piece of the baby's placenta, and a piece of the cord, for spiritual purposes. (No, no one's going to eat it.) The rest of the placenta, I'll give to a lady I know named Amy, who will dry it up and grind it down and put it in little pills. Bless her heart - I don't know how she can deal with all the disgusting-ness that is afterbirth. But you probably get immune to it eventually. One would think.

And then, I'm going to take pills containing my own body parts. Or would it be considered the baby's body part? I don't know, because it's weird and gross and not fun to think about. But regardless of all that, it'll help the depression, and if you've ever had screamingly bad postpartum depression, you know that you'll do just about anything to feel better. Up to and including eating a placenta.