I had a c-section in December (a girl!) so this is pretty fresh in my mind:
You will go into a room where they take all your vitals. They will shave you and IV you and such. Your husband (or whoever) is given clothes to wear. You are given a bitter antacid to take. All in all, this time (about 2 hours) is really sureal. It’s gonna be really hard to believe that in a few hours you’ll be a mom. If you are like me, you will be worried and happy and crying.
When the time comes you are wheeled into the OR. You will be sitting down and you will be asked to reach down, as if to touch your toes. You will get a shot or two. They will lay you back down and you start to feel the numbness set in. All around you the docs and nurses are getting ready and again, if you are like me, you’ll still be in tears.
Imagine waiting for santa when you were a kid but a billion times better.
They poke at you to make sure you you are numb. They set up a curtain in front of your breast. At this time you are completely numb except your head. What was going through my head? “ohmygodohmygod…”
when the operation starts, the doc will tell you to expect a tug. I felt one at what I thought was my breast. Next thing I know I hear the doc say “Here she is” and she showed me her head above the curtain. Boy, if you weren’t crying before…
There is a moment of silence that terrifies you…then you hear the wail. All in all, it takes maybe 5 minutes? You will not feel a single thing. No pain at all.
While they do all the baby stuff (apgar, etc) they sew you up. You will be oblivious to it all.
You will be at the hospital for 3-4 days. The surgery wasn’t as bad as my prior surgeries. I think it’s because mainly you have motivation to get better faster! It will hurt, but walk around as soon as you can.
Misc info:
Your baby may be really sleepy the first few days. It’s to be expected because of the medications. They will want you to feed her every 3 hours. If you breastfeed, this may be difficult because the baby is soooo sleepy. The second night may be difficult. I couldn’t get her to eat no matter what I tried. She was fussy and really upset. I finally had them take her to the nursery to feed her. While I do breastfeed, to me having her eat was more important than what she ate at this point. after that, I didn’t have any problems with her at all.
What ever you do, be reeeeeeeally careful aout how you drink things. Coughing (or laughing) will hurt like hell. It will hurt like HELL to cough or laugh for about a month.
They will probably remove your staples before you leave. They will tape you up then. The tape is really hard to take off, when the time comes. Think about it: hair. tape. OUCH!
After a couple of weeks I was doing well. In about a month’s time, you will be all better, for the most part. I used a co-sleeper and it was nice because I didn’t lift her out of bed. I loved the co-sleeper, but it was really hard to crawl around. At times, I think the crawling into bed (around the sleeper) was harder than lifting. When I came home from the hospital, I didn’t have any problem getting around.
Whatever you do, take it easy. Remember that there is no trophy for being the fastest recoverer. It’s really easy, I hear, to hurt yourself at this point by over doing. As a general rule, do not pick anything heavier than your baby, even if you think it’s no problem!
Around 6 weeks, I started to feel a horrible searing pain along the scar on one side. My doctor told me that it was because I was ovulating and my ovary was pushing up against the scar. Truthfully, this was way more pain than anything prior.
hope this helps! Best of luck to you and your family!