As a data point, my son, who was adopted and is almost eight, keeps a remarkably tidy room for a child. So c-sections = bad, adoption = good for future room tidiness.
(I’m SURE that correlation = causation and this small sample size proves something).
I had a C-section just over 2 years ago, after about 40 hours of labor including 4 hours of pushing. I honestly didn’t know they had started yet when they held up a baby for me to see. My biggest problem was keeping from falling asleep while it was all going on.
Everything I have read says that you should try to get walking as soon as possible. I was walking around the maternity ward the next day pushing the bassinet. I had a really fast recovery, and my scar is already hard to see.
Dorothy’s room isn’t particularly messy, but there’s not much in it to mess up, either. The downstairs room where we keep most of her toys is a pit when she’s done with it.
Just as another data point, my daughter was a vaginal birth. I haven’t seen the floor of her room in years. If you were to ask, I’d say it’s carpeted in clothes and magazines.
She’s much messier than her c-section brother.
Oh - the first after-surgery walk. If I ever come across the little patient care girl (nurse assistant) that made me do the first walk (approximately 6 - 8 hours after surgery) I will probably beat her to death. I mean, I know it’s her job and everything, but she didn’t have to actually do it. I had to walk from the bed to the toilet. It took about 27 hours and 15 shots of morphine.
Also keep in mind: just because it’s a C-section doesn’t mean that you won’t have 300 gallons of nasty blood coming out of you for the next couple weeks.
My first C-section is 5 years old and waaay too neat for a 5 year old.
Well, I just watched the video. It was, um, :eek: x2, but it made me feel better. I guess I am just one of those people who wants to know EVERYTHING–hell I’ve had my bags packed, room ready and such since 26 weeks.
It astounds me there there wasn’t ONE BOOK in my bookstore about the subject of recovery, tips, suggestions, etc. So, you guys have been very helpful. I have a running list of follow-up questions from here and the video.
My “little” guy is riding on the 95th percentile, about 9-9.5lbs, 44 cents/weeks on the fundal chart. We’ve known in the back of our minds that it was a possibility–we were both big babes, but the reality set in when we signed the consent forms and were told to wait for the surgery scheduler to call on Monday. I’ll be 39.5 weeks by then so we are hoping to make it through the weekend–which is the holiday so the “A-team” staff is all off on vacation. I have been a whopping 1 centimeter for a month with regular BH contractions.
My #1 concern is coming home. We live in a 2 story house so I worry about the stairs and how I can avoid them. I learned how to avoid them during my bedrest period, but it did take a lot of planning! Luckily my husband is wonderful and can help me get stuff layed out when he has to return to work.
Now I have to pack some more clothes and distractions for the hospital. I don’t think my 1 pair of throw-away jammies and a magazine is gonna cut it! They have in-room internet so I will post some pics when he comes out!
I have always been scared of surgery (I hadn’t had any for the first 30 years of my life, after all) and unable to deal with pain of any intensity. I proved to myself that the agony of anticipation is generally worse than the actual experience.
I had been in labor for about 12 hours–with an epidural–when the midwife decided that Evan wasn’t going to grace us with his presence of his own accord. A doctor was called in to explain to me that I would have to have a c-section.
I remember the doctor upping the epidural, then asking me if I could feel “this.” I told him that I could feel that he was touching me, at which point he said to the rest of the surgical team, “Yep, she’s numb!” Apparently he was digging his nails forcefully into a hefty handful of my skin.
The incision was made, and Evan was pulled free. It was that quick. It was also the single strangest physical sensation I’ve ever experienced. I spent two hours in isolated recovery while Evan was tended by nurses and the on-call pediatrician, then I was taken to my own hospital room where he was brought to me for his first feeding (I had made sure that every hospital staff member who passed through my line of sight knew that I didn’t want my baby to be fed formula. Somewhere there’s a janitor wondering why I made such a big deal to him about it 
)
As the epidural wore off, I began to feel slight aching, but the nurses were there promptly with pain medication. It wasn’t until the next day when the catheter was removed that I was forced to get out of bed to go to the restroom on my own. It hurt a lot to sit up from a reclining position. It hurt even more to move to the side of the bed. Then the granddaddy of pain hit me when I actually stood up and gravity took its turn on my incision.
After a few days, the pain wasn’t so bad. I was prescribed Percodan to be taken as needed. I did experience an unexpected aching in my lower back muscles. When walking or standing upright, I would use my lower back muscles to support myself instead of using my abdominal muscles. My lower back hurt for many more days than my incision.
MY C/S was a splash and slash under general anesthesia.
I don’t recall the recovery being very difficult. I do recall being tender and slow for a week or more and having driving priveleges restricted for 2 or 3 or 4 (can’t reall now) weeks.
I quite sure I took liberal amounts of the vicodin prescribed, 'cus that’s the kind of girl I am. Why even think about having pain when those handy-dandy pills are nearby?
Good luck sj2- I hope everything goes smoothly for you.
I have never had one, but I have sat in on, and assisted at, several.
It will be all over much more quickly than you think (somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour in theatre, with baby usually delivered sometime in the first 15 minutes after you arrive in the OR).
If you’re planning to breastfeed, make sure you have a nice pillowready and waiting, as you’ll want to take the pressure off your incision.
Go for whatever pain relief works for you, don’t be scared to ask for something else if what you’re being given isn’t working. My mother has had 4 C-sections, each time Pethidine , which is a standard post-op analgesic, did nothing for her, so she stuck to Co-codamol, which I believe is equivalent to Tylenol 3, and that did the trick.
Good luck, and do post pics! I bet you can’t wait to meet him!
Do try and take it easy when you get home- you shouldn’t be lifting anything heavier than your baby, and should certainly be avoiding driving, strenuous exercise and some housework (e.g. bedmaking, vacuuming, laundry) until given the all-clear by your doctor.
Cyn, RN.
I do postpartum care for the 4th largest OB floor in CA, including high-risk c/s deliveries and recoveries. Email if you have specific questions, but my general statement is good anesthesia is all. Talk to your OB. How does a morphine PCA sound? Will it make your face itch? Torodol is a good IV push med for break-through pain. Reglan, Anzemet, Narcan are all good to have on stand-by, ordered but only given prn. Most doc forbid driving for 2 weeks after discharge from hospital. We get most moms home in 3 days. Expect to be on your feet for short periods of time 12 hours after delivery. Believe me, please, this really is good for you. Gas pains hurt like you never expected, so listen to your nurse and take your Mylicon and walk.
No one really believes me.
I believe you.
Three C-sections here. First one after 38 hours of labor. Other than being exhausted, recovery was about like anything post-surgical. Wanted a VBAC so bad the second time (I do not like to be cut open!), but it was a no-go after 14 hours of labor. Got the usual advice–don’t lift anything heavier than your baby–but they added a further warning to be careful about even doing this: My son weighed just over 12 pounds. Again, recovery wasn’t too bad, though I did have more nausea afterwards.
The last time, I went for the planned section–and I’ll have to admit that this was the hardest one I had to recover from. Because it was planned and not after a long labor with epidural in place, they told me I’d be having the spinal instead of the epidural. The reason, they said, was because, unless you’d had the epidural working for a while, it was less effective. I got a spinal headache and had to have a blood patch done (this really hurt for a few moments, but it killed the headache instantly). I also had a lot of uterine clots that weren’t passing and I was bleeding a lot–and having cramps that were every bit as intense as labor pains, but longer. So they did uterine massage (OW, OW, OW!) and that was solved.
As for the procedure itself, I think my experiences aren’t all that different from the others here. But I will say this: if you are claustrophobic about oxygen masks (like I am), tell them NOW so that they can have the nasal canula available. I also had to ask them to leave my arms unstrapped for the same reason–they agreed, so long as I kept them on the armrests or my chest and didn’t swing them into their work area! I got the shakes with my last section, but I just let it happen–I didn’t resist them, and they went away pretty fast. My sister gave me that advice and it was good!
And for the most important advice: take pain meds if you need them. Don’t feel like you’re a wimp if Tylenol alone doesn’t help. It isn’t “Survivor: Maternity Ward.” You won’t get an “F” on your discharge papers under “handled pain well.” If you don’t need them, that’s great. But if you do, don’t be embarrassed to take them, okay? 
I also had a dick for an anesthesiologist (sp?) during the surgery. My epidural wasn’t lasting well and they had to top it up a bunch of times. For some reason my right side wouldn’t take.
I thought (for a nanosecond) about toughing it out, then realized they would be cutting there too so I told them I could feel it. My anesthesiologist looked at me, looked at my resident and actually said, “Low pain tolerance.”
I was pissed but too busy worrying about everything else to say anything. Wish I could go back in time and grab a handful of scrotum and see how his pain tolerance was.
GRRRR!
The moral of my story is don’t be a hero and don’t be afraid to speak up, you need to advocate for your own health and the health of your baby, might as well start now.