Mine was urgent, but not an emergency. I was already in the hospital being monitored due to pre-eclampsia, and at 34 weeks my body basically decided that self destructing would be a fun thing to do. As the doctor disagreed, and Moon Unit was transverse, this meant a c-section.
My first child, Dweezil, was born vaginally, after 15 hours of induced labor, a non-functioning epidural (by a male anesthesiologist whose dick I really should have ripped off - he was a real ass and not overly competent), 3rd degree tearing when they got the baby out with forceps…
I’ll take a c-section over that, any day of the week!
The procedure itself took less than an hour. Epidural didn’t work too well that time either: I didn’t feel them cutting or anything, but my bladder wasn’t numbed. They don’t cut on that, but it does get pushed out of the way and gets jostled, a LOT, which was painful. Still MUCH less pain than the vaginal delivery. And my recovery was a lot faster too: I couldn’t sit upright for 3 weeks after Dweezil was born, and was in a lot more pain.
I was in ICU myself for about 15 hours after the c-section so I wasn’t urged to get up on my feet. I wasn’t in major pain at that point: they dumped a long-acting morphine in the epidural before removing it. The only problem I had with that was my back and legs were itchy (which I’d been warned about ). Typo Knig spent a lot of time scratching my legs, bless him!
I did get up and on my feet within 24 hours. I remember the first attempt to pee - when they removed the catheter - was unsuccessful. The next was not, fortunately.
I had relatively little pain. I don’t mean my gut didn’t hurt - it did - but nothing too intolerable. In fact I took precisely one percocet while in the hospital, the rest of the time I just too naproxen prescription strength. I was walking - well, shuffling - up to the NICU (another floor of the hospital) frequently by 48 hours post-surgery.
I firmly believe that my easy recovery was because the doctor had time to take her time and not rush through, because the baby wasn’t in imminent danger. This allowed the damage to be somewhat minimal.
I had heard that we’re not supposed to drive for 2 weeks after surgery. I probably could have, but didn’t want to push it. I sorta needed to - as I was spending all day at the hospital even after I was discharged.
Find out from your insurance company if they have a standard allowable stay after a c-section. Many of them were trying to cut that to 3 days (some even 2) but some state legislatures actually intervened as 3 days isn’t enough for many people. I think the standard is 4 days unless you have strong medical indication that you need longer. You don’t want to plan on 4, then find out after that that you’ve just spent a grand out of pocket!
Don’t plan on any heavy physical activity for a few weeks. You may feel great but your body will probably pipe up suddenly and say “Rest. Now.” if you overdo it.
Your traumatized gut will shut down and it’ll be a few days before you need to poop. I’d suggest keeping up with stool softeners (the nurses will have Colace to hand out like breath mints. Take them.). That first dump will be like, well, shitting a brick (it gets better after that). And your gut muscles won’t especially feel like working that hard.
