did you keep the placenta

We kept ours, Willie buried Maya's one in the back yard at the place we were renting which made me furious as I wanted it taken back to their turangawaewae at Reweti, the gremlins one is still in the freezer but it is definitely going to Reweti.

I did have a good look at both of them. My MW explained all the bits to me.

My mum has kept both of my boys. I didn't want to keep them but i'm glad that she has. She wants to take them back to the Islands and plant coconut trees over them on some family land. That's what my nana did with mine.

I would have love to keep it and plant it somewhere but we knew we were moving countries and wouldnt be able to take it with us. So for that reason I am also not keeping the next one as I never ever want my little girl to think she wasnt also special. (Yip I know I am weird.

Sorry, I think it's icky. But it does interest me the difference between having it stored at some great expense or keeping it in the freezer at home (for the stem cell thing if our children get seriously ill later in life) Does anyone know about the different options?
What do you have to do with them if you keep them at home in the freezer?

This is a great thread -- none of my mates back in the US would even consider keeping theirs. I don't think it's even an option there unless you sign forms and get all sorts of permission. I told my midwife right from the start that I didn't even want to see my placenta after the birth, let alone keep it. But of course, she HAD to ask again when she was inspecting it to make sure it was all there, and at the same time that I said "Hell, no!" DH said, "Well, actually..." So now it's in our freezer. And yes, it does gross me out, but DH really wants to plant a tree over it somewhere, someday. The funniest/grossest part of the whole thing is that the container it's in sort of looks like an ice cream container, so a few times we've had to warn guests who were foraging for ice cream NOT to look in the white container on the top shelf!

We will be donating ours to the research team at Liggins too. As neither of us have any particular strong cultural views on it, we feel it should still be put to a good use and hopefully the research will benefit someone else having a baby in the future. Its also the same reason that we became involved with the Scope study.

I think it is a beautiful thing to have some strong cultural beliefs though - and it must be lovely to be able to take it "home" to family land or a marae, giving your children a connection to a place forever.