When you walked out of the hospital for the first time ...

[Gigi]

i was at the stage of shuffling, a few steps at a time, and needing to be close to walls, to hang onto for support. so i got wheeled to the car.

i'd spent five days in hospital for an emergency c-section, and when they opened me up, there were complications (bilby wasn't breathing when she was wrenched out of me by the leg). ANyone else have "bandl's ring" happen to them during labour? your baby gets strangled by your uterine muscles, literally.

it would have been nice to have had a straightforward/healthy labour/birth, so that i could walk to the car, and hold my baby.

i remember being scared, and in so much pain, i felt EVERY bump in the road (on a ten minute journey home) and i was so upset i coudln't twist around to see how bilby was in her carseat. i was worried she wasn't strapped in safely enough.

Getting in and out of the car was so ouch.

DH half carried me inside once we got home.

really hard to look after a nb when you're feeling that poorly.

so all these people that are up and about three days after their c-section, good on them, but it sure wasn't like that for me. (took months to recover).

i think it's like bad period pain, if you've never experienced it, it's easy to think "oh they must be putting it on". As soon as you experience it yourself, it's like "whoa, it IS bad".
I felt so brainwashed that "everyone was fine after c-sections", that when i wasn't, i was too embarrassed to admit it, at the time, in case i was accused of malingering. Just knew how i felt, and felt like a failure (about taking so long to heal, walk normally again, being in pain etc.)

Often the times i have mentioned it, subsequent posters put comments about "pain threshold tolerance", i actually know i have a high pain threshold, because i've been told so by medical staff.

[nic]

with DD, DH did a couple of trips to the car, then we all walked downstairs and waited for him to bring the car to the front doors of the hospital. Grannie In-Law had to crash the moment, telling me to give my baby to her, so i stood, in pain waiting for DH to adjust the car seat for this little creature that we obviously had no idea on how tiny she would be.

With DS, the hospital had a baggage trolley, so DH filled it up and did one trip to the car. DH carried DS downstairs, ( we were suppose to take him to the front door in his crib, due to hospital policy) and DD and I sat in a chair and held DS until DH bought the car around to the front.

[Indadhanu]

LOL, yes I sat in the back with Jazz and Shel drove at about 60kph on the 110kph highway. Good thing though, going over potholes at 60kpm was torture after a c/s. 110 would have been certain death (for Shel )!

[Pooley]

I left the hospital keeled over in pain and with a sick bag in one hand a bunch of flowers and my bag in the other. Little did I know at that point that I was suffering from a postpartum puncture headache because of the epidural my c/s wound was not even registering in my mind at that point. My husband carried DS.

Readmitted the next morning after a night of pure hell dealing with my new baby and my illness. 3 days later my second exit from the hospital was solo, my husband came to get me while my Mum looked after DS. Not the nicest introduction to motherhood.

[*Beema*]

I walked out alone, to get clothes and supplies for a few days, the second time was to get the car seat fitted and pick up my pram, finally the last time I got to carry my daughter out, 11 days after her birth.

I hope that next time I get to take my new baby home with me the first time I walk out the doors of the hospital

[Murph01]

You asked a popular question and I just stumbled across it, which coincidentally is how I left the hospital

I was conditionally released 5 days after my caesarian to a hospital closer to my home which was a 2 hour drive on a windy coastal road between Cairns and Mossman and I anticipated a very uncomfortable trip home. I hit the doctors up for one last dose of pain killers (the stuff that always made me spin) so that was in full swing by the time we walked out in my slippers. My husband carried the baby and my Mum practically had to carry me or at least hold me up. I had asked for a wheel chair but these things are so routine, no one thought I would need one. Wrong! they hadn't seen me on drugs. I was giggly and slurring my words but I was in the back with my tiny bub and soon at the next hospital for the rest of our stay. By the way, our little girl in that car seat was so cruel, I remember thinking..."is this legal?" she weighed 2.3 kilos and sitting slumped seemed so wrong.