Placenta: The Gift of Life

I saw this book on the table at the midwifes on Thursday so I picked it up and I love it. Basically because it is so hard to talk about placenta with people, it reaches to many people's discomfort zones, even from my friends who have used midwives.
The book has so many options and stories about how different cultures use placenta that I am unsure what I want to do. When I met Trish for the first time she still had Sam's placenta in the freezer. They planted it a few years later and I think maybe planted a tree on it, not sure exactly. That is a very common thing to do and I like the idea, especially the apple tree for a girl and a nut tree for a boy like they do in Switzerland (since I am trying to grasp my Swiss roots that I for so long believed were German).
Other things I liked were the sacredness people felt toward this organ they grew, believing it was the brother or sister to the child and not to just be chucked. It appears that in all other countries the use of placenta is still big, except in the US, where FDA puts the smack down for medical uses and such, but makeup companies can still use them. It is the hormones in the placenta that give the medicine its power and makeup it's "revitalizing"ness. The book even warns about not using placenta with teens because of the estrogen levels. Other good medicine uses are for breast milk production (adopted moms can get milk in by taking placenta) and people with things like alopecia and hair problems. I think if I want to do anything medically my midwife would probably help me. She made her own kombucha and is often talking tinctures and stuff.
I never really thought about the placenta and such until I was at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Wyoming and saw a Native American Rattle which used the umbilical cord in the rattle as a way to connect the child to its original home. I feel in love with the piece.
Anyway, I am only half way through the book and not decided, but I am excited about it. I was recipes in the back of the book and was joking with Brian and Frederique about putting a delicacy on the menu for one night only. They were pretty grossed out. I also told them that I would supply the milk for breast milk pancakes on Sundays. People will be flocking in. I also was doing research lately on breast milk and found adults are drinking it with cancer, because it is known to kill cancer cells in lab tests. I guess in a weird way having a baby is not only opening yourself up to producing life, you are also taking on the process of being consumed. Even if you did everything "normal" your milk would still be consumed by your baby and your placenta has got to be consumed by something, be it the landfill or the earth. I think not knowing where my placenta went after birth would unnerve me as much as the remains of a lost loved one.