Mostly I felt blessed relief - I was so so happy to be holding a baby when I thought i would never be able to "do" a birth ever again. The staff were fantastic and very reassuring, the actual procedure was handled really well, I had no shakes or nausea or anything (and if you do, you should tell the anaesthetist so they can adjust the meds).

For the first 24 hours afterwards I itched uncontrollably from the morphine-based anaesthetic, even my eyeballs felt itchy. Nasty agency nurse wouldn't hand over the antihistamine when it was at its worst in the middle of the night. Mind you I was so high from pressing the PCA button constantly it didn't matter very much at the time. But with subsequent surgeries I've mentioned it and they've given me something else instead.