Tree of Life

Thoughts about my babies placenta's often flit through my head. Yes, slightly strange I know, since I don't actually have babies of my own yet or any tangible placentas to go with them. But I think of them none the less, enough for me to say that placentas are fascinating things.

One of my most enjoyable 'mundane' tasks to complete on clinical placement is to check placentas. Healthy, fresh placentas are a work of God's creativity. Heavy with blood, and warm too, they remind me of their amazing job, to nourish and sustain a precious life for nine months! They are a marvelous thing, so I enjoy checking them, checking to see it is intact and complete, eyeing off the blood vessels making sure there are no odd ones trailing along the side indicating perhaps the placenta had an extra lobe, separating the two membranes, and looking at the cord insertion.

When I have babies, (God please bless me with them!), I would like my third stage of labour to be physiological, leaving the cord un-cut until the placenta has been birthed so I can see the baby/placenta unit together. If you go here there is a birth story told with photos, one photo shows the baby and placenta joined - please note the birth is quite graphically captured. So often I think many women view the placenta as 'theirs', rather than an extension of their children - which is why I want to see my children still attached, just so I can sit in awe of what God has made to nurture them along the nine months of their growing.

And then just to be artistic, I would like placenta prints, like the one in the picture above, showing how the placenta fans out beautifully looking the Tree of Life. And what then? Well it will be buried... a nice spot for a tree to grow later.