As a mother of three, who has had one vaginal delivery, one emergency c-section and one planned c-section, I have to chime in here.
I can’t believe this article! I can promise you, c-sections are not pain-free. You have the pain after the surgery, not during. I was in labor for 18 hours with my first child, but I can say the procedure was pain-free. I had an epidural, which worked wonders. There was a small bit of pain afterwards, but nowhere near what it was like with a c-section.
It’s interesting, standing up for the first time after surgery, wondering if your guts are going to fall out. Then you have to have more drugs to kill the pain.
Vaginal deliveries do damage “down there?” Not in my case. I enjoyed sex as much after as I did before.
I enjoy it even more now because I had a tubal.
Our son was a c-section because his heart rate kept decelling. It was a scary situation, but I did get to be awake and Saint Zero was right there with me. Our son had a perfect knot in his umbilical cord. If we hadn’t had the surgery, he might not be here today.
Our daughter was planned. I wanted to go VBAC, since I had a successful vaginal delivery before, but since she was only 13 months after her older brother, the chance of uterine rupture was too high. After talking with my doctor and doing some research on my own, we decided a repeat c-section was the best way to go. It also made it easier for the doctor to do a tubal while he was there.
I wouldn’t recommend surgery as an everyday way of having a baby. It’s great if you need it, but only if you need it. I don’t believe it should be available simply on demand.
Of course, c-sections do make for some serious stories to pass down. For example, after our son was born, they gave me a self-service morphine drip. I could punch the button every so often and get pain relief. I pressed it once. Only once. I got up about 4am to go to the bathroom, and came out and statred dancing with my IV pole, singing, “An IV is a girl’s best friend.” My porr husband was laughing hysterically! To this day, he wishes he would have had a video camera.
I turned down the morphine the next time. My husband was devastated. 