Placenta prints

I made placenta prints two days after Dio's birth. The ones on the top of the picture were done with the blood from the placenta, then I rinsed it off and painted it with watercolors. I think I'll frame the watercolor print on the bottom left, like I did with Zari's placenta print. It seems my placentas like to be distinctive. Zari's placenta had a velamentous cord insertion. Dio's had a battledore or marginal cord insertion--not as rare as a velamentous insertion, but interesting nonetheless. A battledore placenta has an umbilical cord that attaches at the edge of the placenta, rather than the middle. Why the name battledore? According to several sources, battledore placentas resemble the racket used in battledore, a precursor to badminton.

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Someone loves me (not)

Thought you'd get a chuckle out of this person who was grossed out by home birth and placenta prints. She left a few nice comments (sarcastic cough) on my choice to name Zari and then wrote a about how she finds placenta prints gross on her own blog.

Here's the infamous placenta print, framed and hung up in my bedroom. I found the frame at a garage sale for $1. I taped over the canvas and spray painted it satin black.

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She has a name!

...and it is...

Zari Rose Freeze

Eric thought up Zari on his own after seeing the name Zariah. And it turns out it actually is a name--Arabic for "rose."

Interestingly enough, I made some placenta prints yesterday and they came out looking like a rose. So that sealed the deal for us. The brownish print on the right is made from the placenta's own blood. Then I rinsed it off and painted it with watercolors to make the print on the left and in the book.

We are going to plant a rose bush (and her placenta) in the spring.

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