"Your wife does what?!"

The question was asked of me, “What is it like to be the partner of a placenta encapsulator?”. Here is my answer.

I watch my wife, interact with people during the throes of childbirth. I’ve been there. I know the roller coaster and pitfalls of the process. Mother, father, and families, are in a place in their lives of need, and I’m happy to know that my partner is a part of their healing process.

A typical day starts with a phone call announcing a couple in labor. The labor can be an hour, a few hours, or a day. Predictability is non existent. Childbirth is no joke. It comes as it comes and it goes as it goes and no one has an answer as to where the finish line resides. You get there when you get there.

As a partner, it’s easy to lose sight or connection to what these moms are going through. It’s easy to see the placentas come through the door, get processed in a clinical, laboratory environment and leave as quickly as they came. There is no emotion. But as someone who has watched the birth of my child and has witnessed the placenta that was attached to her, joining mother and daughter, providing nourishment, oxygen, and life, be processed and ingested, it holds a special place for me. I know that every time my wife picks up a placenta, takes it to her lab, and processes that piece of life, she has fulfilled the wishes of someone who she relates to on a very intimate level. The birth process can be chaotic enough where all common sense and logic is launched as far away from reality as possible. To be able to give this gift that so many people long for, requires many pieces to fall into place. It is truly a moment when they look forward to her presence.

Childbirth isn’t ordering a cheeseburger animal style at IN’N’OUT. It’s a complex puzzle of all kinds of moving pieces that have to coordinate together in an almost miracle fashion. It’s amazing that the end result of the process is actually a living, breathing human being. I wonder sometimes about the delivery, the follow through. I don’t get to see that end where my wife meets with the families and their new addition. I don’t get to see if there are any smiles on their faces when the delivery of their pills arrive. I don’t get to see the happiness or the joy of the new family environment, but I do get to absorb it from my wife, when she returns home. When she’s met that new family, and greeted their new addition her body language always tells a story of happiness and joy.

It makes me smile to know how she may be changing lives. I’ve seen how much good it can do personally. It’s very comforting to know that she can provide that for so many other people.

About the Author: