Tell Me About Your C-Sections WITH Adequate Anesthesia

None of the anecdotes I have from people I know personally were that kind of c-section, and if it were a very rare thing that only happened in the direst of emergencies I wouldn’t worry so much. There’s a wide range between “planned c-section” and “get the baby out NOW.”

Planned C-section (placenta previa). The greatest pain I was in was after recovery, when my back spasmed so bad I couldn’t move at all, and the nurse refused to give me any pain meds at all, instead giving me a shame on you, you selfish coward lecture. My husband had to hunt up the OB and get me morphine. I remember a miraculous instantaneous slide into beatific sleep.

No pain whatsoever during the surgery although I did nearly bleed to death in the recovery room (also painless, but it makes one very thirsty).

I was in labor for 27 hours, most of which were with an epidural. DH and I played chess and watched a lot of Law & Order reruns. When I was finally dilated, they shut of the epidural, and I pushed for three hours. He crowned, but stopped moving after that. The doctor tried two different types of forceps, and then said we needed to go to a c-section. I was fine with it. I was signing the papers, getting shaved, and suddenly the little guy’s heartrate dropped, and then it was an emergency. They were waiting until I was in the ER to restart the epidural. They started it, but when the knife touched me, it hurt, so the mask came down over my face, and that’s all I knew until two hours later. I’d had a shot of morphine, and would be getting another shot, after they told me they baby had to have his breathing started, and was in an isolette, mostly to prevent infection, because there was meconium in the amniotic fluid, and to give him a little extra oxygen (not much), but HE WAS FINE. I fell back asleep.

They kept coming in every two hours to take my vitals, and I only half woke up the first few times, but suddenly, at 6am (6 hours after the procedure), I was wide awake, and very hungry (I hadn’t eaten in about 39 hours, although, I think there was dextrose, or glucose, or something, in the IV). First I demanded something to eat, then I demanded to see the baby, then I demanded something to eat again, then I started crying about wanting to see my baby.

My husband had been sitting with the baby, and they called him in, and he got me calmed down pretty quick-- he gave me the camera, with several pix of the baby. They had to put me in a wheelchair to go see the baby, and the nurse who was helping me transfer had a big cross with sharp points around her neck, and it poked me in the eye. It hurt, which was when I first realized that I wasn’t actually in any real pain from the surgery. Actually, it’s when I first kinda remembered that Oh yeah, I just had surgery.

After I visited the baby, and got to touch him, I felt immensely better. They gave me vegetable bouillon, and an Ensure, and I fell back asleep.

I was on a fentanyl drip, with a button, and I kept forgetting that I could dose myself, because I wasn’t in a lot of pain. I had a tonsillectomy as an adult, and if you want to talk pain, I’ll tell you about my tonsillectomy. The pain from the c-section was no where near as bad an the tonsillectomy. I’ve had four surgeries in my life, if you count my wisdom teeth extraction, which was done under GA, and was a surgical extraction because the teeth were impacted; the c-section was the least painful.

The lack of food and sleep, plus three hours of pushing, were harder on me than the actual surgery, and I think that if I’d known what was going to happen, and I’d had the c-section right away, it would have been much easier.

Thank you for your story, Rivkah. It’s comforting to hear that even though there was little time to spare for yours, you still managed to get knocked out effectively.

Ulfreida, why did the nurse think you were being selfish? Yikes.

No problem. I know most people want to be awake so they can hold the baby right away, but in my case, that wouldn’t have been possible anyway, and the GA spared me seeing him born blue with an Apgar of 1, and then four people rushing over to resuscitate him. He had a five minute Apgar of 8, and after 12 hours, he was out of the isolette, but on a monitor-- after another day, he was off the monitor, and just fine. When I first saw him, he was pink, and his head popped up when I touched his leg. I think I’d have nightmares if I’d see the horrible first couple of minutes. My husband had to watch it, and he still tears up when he talks about it.

I don’t really know how to count how long I was in labor with my first. I got Cervadil on Thursday night, they started Pitocin on Friday afternoon, I got an epidural in the middle of the night that night, I pushed for four hours on Saturday morning, and I had a C-section on Saturday afternoon. No problem at all with anesthesia, in fact I had an exceptionally good epidural that blocked pain while leaving me very able to move. After the C-section was over, they asked me if I could wiggle my toes. I did, and they said wow, that was good, can you move your legs? I said, “Sure!” and lifted them right off the table. Everyone freaked. (My doula told me that it wasn’t until that moment that she realized I was getting so much pain relief from the epidural while I was pushing, because she could see how well I was able to move and even stand.) But I didn’t feel anything but a little bit of tugging during the birth. The baby was fine, too.

I had a planned C-section with my second (due to placenta previa), and the anesthesia was fine that time, too - I didn’t feel a thing.

I know you didn’t ask about the recovery, but it was not a problem either time.

Funny. I did almost fall off the table. My right leg slid off, and I quickly started to follow the weight. I was frozen from the waist down and couldn’t save myself. As I started to slide, I yelled “Falling!” No one moved. Then I yelled “Seriously, going down like a boat anchor!” One nurse turned and shrieked then everyone grabbed me and hauled me back up. I’m glad I didn’t hit the deck!

I had been labouring for 36 hours (after 14 before epidural). I agree that you don’t really feel it at all after labouring.

My actual surgey wasn’t really that big a deal. It wasn’t a planned c-section, but wasn’t an emergency either. They started to cut, and I could feel it on my right side. They upped the anesthetic and it was fine, well, sort of, as I was having some weird reactions to the meds, but all of that was secondary. The surgery took longer than I thought it would - I admit I was swayed by all of the movies and TV where it takes seconds and you hear a baby crying. It was a good solid twenty minutes before I met my daughter face to face.

It was also the weirdest timing on a compliment ever! One doctor asked “Have you been working out? Your abs look GREAT!”

Ummmm…thanks?

My wife recently had a planned c-section (as in, planned a few days in advance - baby was breach). I was with in theatre and I think we both agree it was a far more pleasant experience than a natural labour (though she still says she wanted a natural labour, and would like one for our second if possible). She reported quite a bit of pain with them administering the anaesthetic in her back, as they had to poke around a bit to find the right spot, but after that she felt nothing at all. They were extremely careful to check she was fully numb before doing anything, and she didn’t get the feeling back in her legs until a couple of hours after the operation. No morphine for her afterwards, not sure if it would have been available if needed (we’re in the UK) but she is a tough cookie.

The aftercare was excellent, the only really stressful part was trying to get the little one to breastfeed, but that’s another story. I think the risk of feeling anything on a planned caesarean is really low, the horror stories are more likely to be from emergencies where the priority is survival of mother and baby rather than pain relief.

I’m not the perfect person to post here because my epidural wasn’t 100% effective: we found that the bladder wasn’t adequately numbed and by the time that was discovered, it was too late to redo the epidural. That was painful but very brief - like 5 minutes, and frankly I’ve felt much worse pain like my botched vaginal delivery with my first child. Everything else was just fine. I remember saying “oh cool” when they made the first incision, as I felt the pressure (thought it felt like they were drawing a line on my tummy).

The funny side of it was I was trying not to cuss (as Dweezil had been learning Mommy’s Driving Words) so I yelled “BAD WORD” a few times before basically shrugging and saying the hell with it and letting out some R-rated language. Later on, a NICU nurse who had been in the OR at the time said “I was surprised they didn’t put you under” to which I said “you just wanted 'em to shut me up!!”.

All in all, while those 5 minutes were unpleasant, they were MUCH better than my first delivery.

In my case, the c-section was urgent but not emergent. By this, I mean it was necessary that the baby come soon (within a couple hours), not NOW OR SHE’LL DIE. I believe this was tremendously helpful in that the doctor wasn’t too rushed and could take her time and do minimal damage.

In order to get the baby out, they REALLY shove things around. They never show that bit on the TV shows, but I was pretty aware of it (especially as it aggravated that one not-numb spot). As soon as the baby was out, that stopped as did the bit of pain.

They didn’t give me a pushbutton morphine thing - in fact the only reason I was on an IV was because I needed to have magnesium sulfate for the first few hours. For that reason I spent 12 hours basically in intensive care. The pain wasn’t bad - they gave me a long-acting narcotic in the epidural before removing the feed, and the only problem I had was that my skin itched (something I’d been warned of). I had a grand total of one Percocet tablet; the rest of the time I stuck with NSAIDs which worked well enough without making me woozy.

I was stuck in the intensive care area because I’d started early stages of HELLP. The doctor saw me at 11 PM (baby had been born about 1:30) and apparently I was doing well enough that she considered springing me after 12 hours - only SHE FORGOT TO WRITE THE ORDERS. So around 3, when I hadn’t seen the baby yet, and my nurse was insisting that there were no such orders, I got pretty agitated which of course didn’t do my BP or reflexes much good. I made her phone the doctor in the middle of the night - at which point I was “sprung” though it still took 2+ hours to get organized and outta there. I did get to see the baby briefly before being taken to my room.

At that point, finally in the room and they removed the IV because it had clotted and fortunately they didn’t insist on restarting it; also removed the catheter. I hobbled to the bathroom and Nothing Happened (which apparently is common after a catheter). A second or third attempt was more successful; IIRC, I ran water in the sink nearby which helped.

The baby was on another floor of the hospital since she was in the NICU, so I was highly motivated to get moving. My first few visits were via wheelchair but by 48 hours I was doing the old-lady-stoop hobble. I could not have cared for a baby alone at that point.

I stayed in the hospital 4 days. The doctor tried to kick me out a day earlier (the doctor covering for mine actually) because I really was doing pretty well, but with the baby in the NICU I didn’t want to leave if insurance would let me stay. Also, the rails on the hospital bed were really helpful in getting up.

Had I gone home at 3 days, with a baby, I could have basically breastfed the baby and nothing else, carewise, as I couldn’t have carried her around. By 4 days I might have managed a few steps but I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone with her. As she was still in the NICU. obviously, that was all moot.

Pooping: You’ve got narcotics in your system, you haven’t eaten much (and it’s been low fiber), and your innards are royally pissed off at you. Yeah, that first bowel movement wasn’t fun. I was drinking a lot of liquid, and taking all the Colace they’d give me, and I did actually ask for a suppository. It still wasn’t fun. But it did get better after that first time.

If anyone is up for a really TMI story, ask me about my first poop after my c-section.

Um, excuse me? what board is this? :smiley: (might wanna put it in spoiler boxes though).

Ooh, I also have a poop story! But it isn’t the usual poop story.

Emergency c-section here, of the “We can give you drugs to make you deliver vaginally, which will kill the baby, or we can do a c-section with a vertical incision (so all your future babies will be c-sectioned)…take your time deciding. We’ll have the OR ready in 10 minutes,” variety. So not quite the panic and race of a shoulder dystocia with a dropping heartrate, but pretty urgent and time sensitive.

Didn’t feel a thing but a little nausea on the table. The anesthesiologist warned me ahead of time that might happen and to let him know. I did, and he nodded and twirled a dial and the nausea went away before my husband could hold the emesis basin to my face.

The thing I thought was really cool was that when they turned the spinal on (it was a spinal, not an epidural) my lower body got really cold in a wave from my toes to my ribs, then got tingly, then got numb. When it was turned off, it happened in reverse - first tingly, then cold, then back to normal. Fair warning - those surgical tables are really narrow, and they strap your arms out of the way out to your sides like a crucifix. Then they tilt the whole shebang so your uterus is off the big vein that runs on the side of your abdomen. It’s…disconcerting. But it’s not painful. There’s lots of tugging and pulling, and you’ll be certain they’re going to push you right onto the floor (there was probably more tugging for mine than most: she was still so early and tiny that the uterus hadn’t stretched all that big yet, so they had to work it up and open to get her out.) Most people with spinals say they don’t feel tugging and pulling, but I sure did.

Spinals are pretty fast - 5 minutes. Not quite as fast as general anesthetic, but faster than epidurals - 20-30 minutes. But if you’re laboring with an epidural, they will almost always use that if they need to do a c-section, rather than switching to a spinal. Spinal is a single injection of local anesthetic into the spinal fluid; epidural is usually given through a catheter that stays in the epidural space - one space “out” from the spinal space. Spinal doses of medication are about 1/10 of epidural doses. Spinals are given when they know about how long you’ll need to be numb for; epidurals are given when they don’t know, and they may want to add more medicine later, like during labor.

I had two C-sections, both after laboring but neither an emergency. Pain was not a major issue with either one. I had epidurals and I dont remember any pain from the original injections either, although trying to double over to the correct position for the injection while having labor pains was no picnic.

I remember the anesthesiologist giving me his spiel explaining what he was going to do while I was busy with my lamaze breathing and him ending it with ‘and you dont really care what I’m saying, do you?’.

WhyNot’s description, minus the emergency, is spot on to mine.

After two Uneventful vaginal births, I had an emergency C-section because my son was too big to go through the birth canal and his and my heart rate pretty much stopped. They had already administered an epidural, which I had not had before, and once the nurses tried to push my baby into the canal, that is when the trouble occurred.

I ended up okay and my baby ended up inhaling some amniotic fluid, which required him to hang out in the NICU for a few days.

Having had both a vaginal birth and a c - section, I can say there are both pros and cons to each method. Sex was easier after the c section. I feel like in the long term, it was harder to heal but in the short term, I didn’t have a surgical scar. Ultimately, there were pros and cons to all but the bottom line was I had healthy babies. I would do either again if need be.

I’m an RN is a hospital well known for the large number of babies that we deliver every year. We also do a lot of cesarean sections. A lot.

Adequate anesthesia is not optional. Hospitals take pain management and control very, very seriously. We consider pain ‘the 5th vital sign.’ If you ever feel you are not covered, speak up.

For a normal, planned c/s, I think you will find things roll along very quickly, easily, and professionally. You will report in, get all the details out of the way (clothing, paperwork, intake assessment, fetal check, IV and labs, etc), and then get an epidural.

My very busy facility is not a teaching hospital so all procedures are done by real, live, professionals who have done hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of whatever procedure they are performing.

You will be fully awake and alert at all times. The anesthesiologist will check the effect of the anesthesia to ensure that it is adequate. Once that is assured, only then will you have the surgery. You will still be awake and alert and can tell your doctors, nurses, anesthesiologist, family member and any other persons present how you are feeling at any time.

You will be lying on the table with a drape separating your head from the surgical area. Your spouse or SO will be sitting or standing by your head and can watch (and video!) if they would like.

You will feel things- tugging, pulling, shifting, etc., but you should not feel pain. Remember, you are fully awake and alert and everyone is still there: If you feel weird at all, let them know. There is frequently a lot of chatting amongst everyone going on at this time.

Very quickly, a baby will appear! You will get to see him or her, your spouse may even get to hold him or her briefly, and then the baby will be moved to a station near your head for a quick examination, a light cleaning, and a bundling up. You should be able to watch all this from where you are, which has the added bonus of distracting you while you get all put back together. The putting thing back together is the long part of this kind of delivery. Our c/s’ s tend to run about 45 minutes from beginning to end.

Then you and your baby will move out to the recovery area for a bit to make sure all is well, and the to the post partum unit for a couple of days.

We leave our epidurals in for a day or two and then switch to pills. The epidural comes out very, very easily- just like and IV only with a larger piece of tape. The worst part of the removal is the tape. You will also have your abdominal dressing removed in a day or two. Again, the worst part is the tape.

You may have stitches, glue or tape strips to your incision. Glue and tape require no further action. If staples- this removal, too, is much easier than one would expect. It does not hurt. If my patient is very anxious about this or thinks it will hurt, I will medicate them and come back an hour later for the staple removal.

As far as pain pills after the epidural is out: The order is written to provide them at the patient’s request. I make it a habit to offer meds on a scheduled basis. Some nurses wait until the request for meds is received. This is a delicate area.

If I offer too much, I could be considered as attempting to “push” something on someone who doesn’t want it. If I don’t offer, then I could be considered neglectful and not addressing the “5th vital sign.”

I prefer to ask "How is your pain on this pain scale at this time?’ and say “You have XYZ meds available, would you like something now?” I write all available meds on the dry erase board, and note the time I gave it so you can keep track easily.

Often, my offer is declined because the patient is comfortable or because she is worried that the meds will pass through her milk to her baby. But remember, it’s not too much medication! You have to take care of yourself so you can take care of your fabulous new baby!

I had a “splash and slash” C/S at 23 weeks for a prolapsed cord. This is a true obstetric emergency. Our unwritten policy at work is “from decision to incision, 20 minutes or less” in such cases, but we usually have the babies out in about 9-12 minutes. Of course, that’s a pretty scary 9-12 minutes.

My baby’s heartbeat dropped to the 30-60 beats per minute range. All I recall from the event was the mad dash to the OR with a doctor’s hand up my vagina, transferring to the OR table, and getting a mask placed on my face. My next recollection was waking up in the recovery room.

Even this horrible event was not painful or difficult for me, physically.

I woke up with a PCA (an IV, not epidural or spinal) for pain control and a large-ish (for a one and a half pound baby!) mid-line incision that runs from my belly button to pubis.

That baby is a normal, walking, talking, 16 year old high school student now. He does have a diagnosis of Asperger’s type autism, or high functioning autism, but so do half the kids at his public high school, and I’ve always been somewhat ambivalent about that.

23 weeks, wow - that must have been stressful to say the least. As you may know, that’s still early enough to legally abort in the UK (let’s not have that debate here, but it does illustrate WAY EARLY very well, I think). And what a great happy ending.

Your previous post is a very good description of how my wife’s C-section and recovery went, except she had a spinal injection rather than an epidural, and she said she didn’t even feel any pulling.

Indeed, Dead Cat. Here the 23-24 week range is considered a ‘grey area.’

I had asked for a 'Do Not Resuscitate" order for my son and was told that the rule was 24 weeks and 500 grams. I was told that they thought my boy was closer to 700 grams, so they would have to take action. I asked that if he was not robust, they they not try very hard.

It was a very, very tough spot to be in, for sure.

We were fortunate that he was a vigorous baby and delivered in a facility that was capable of handling a baby of that gestation. Not all hospitals have that ability.

Big hugs. 23 weeker here, too. 620 grams, but a girl. She’s 9 and reading Harry Potter and can outrun me now. :slight_smile: