After I’d given birth to my daughter, the midwives asked my wife and me what we wanted to do with the placenta. We couldn’t afford to have it made into pills or artwork, but the placenta felt too sacred to throw in the trash, so we took it home and put it in the freezer. Almost three years later, when we moved from California to Colorado, we packed the placenta in a red-and-white minicooler. Since it was mid-December, we figured it would survive the drive. Each night we covered it in fresh ice from the motel.