Not while it was still attached to her, thank God.  (Because that would be really gross and creepy, unlike the TMI story I’m about to tell).

I am not a sentimental, scrap booking, volunteer for the PTA type of parent.  I’m just not an artsy fartsy, or touchy-feely type o’ gal.  My wedding dress is still in a plastic garbage bag hanging in my closet, and it took me 3 years after the wedding to order a wedding album.  I still have not made any baby books for my two girls, who are now 5 and 4 years old.

So, flashback 5 years.  I am an exhausted new mom, with a colicky newborn.  My days were filled with sleep deprived all-encompassing newborn care.  Nursing, crying, diapers,….repeat ad nauseam.  I waited with anticipation for all the newborn milestones; coos, grasping, rolling over, cord falling off………  Hmmm, why does she still have her cord still attached? Here we are 4 weeks after birth, and my baby still has a dried up chunk of decomposing umbilical cord still attached.  The “average” cord falls of by 2 weeks of life, but my daughter is above average.  Her cord would not budge.  I just got used to it.  Didn’t think about it.  Until one day, when it was gone!  It just disappeared, to be replaced with a cute little belly button.

Fast forward two years after her birth.  My evil little black cat is being very feisty.  She is chasing and playing with what I assume to be a bug, underneath my king sized bed.  She starts to pounce on this “bug” and runs around my bedroom with it in her mouth.  I become curious.  I grab the cat, open her mouth, and pull out………my daughter’s umbilical cord.  It is dried up, brown, and still has the indentations from where the clamp was placed.

Don’t be so judgmental.  There are plenty of moms out there who save their babies umbilical cords for scrapbooks, or who store their own placentas in the freezer (you know who you are).  I just “accidentally” saved my daughter’s cord for over two years, and I “saved” it from being ingested by my evil cat.  This is normal, right?

RR