i had the shakes and a bit of nausea - but i hadn't slept more than an hour at a stretch for about three days and had been contracting (induced) for nearly 18 hours when i went into theatre at 4.30am - so i put a lot of that down to exhaustion moreso than the actual meds/procedure.

I gave birth at around 4.45, was back on the ward by 5.45, and feeding dd by 6.30. catheter was out again by 1030 and i was up and walking around the room as soon as i could after that. I felt significantly less pain than i expected. i would have been happy with nothing but panadol for pain management after the surgery - but i'd had previous surgery to my ovaries as well as ivf and resultant complications that left me quite uncomfortable, so i wonder if maybe it was because, in comparison, it didn't feel so bad. i felt more stiff, like i'd worked hard in the garden during the day, and then not cooled my muscles down the right way and strained them! probably the only thing that bugged me (and hurt) was the drain bottle that kept dropping off the edge of the bed. oh, and the clexane injections to stop blood clots - but i'm not sure if that's normal or just because i'm a larger lass - they were annoying more than anything! i also had pressure stockings on my lower legs to prevent the swelling, and they suggested i keep using them til about 10 days post partum (from memory)

my milk was slow coming in, which was suggested may have been due to the c/s (it may have also been the exhaustion from the failed induction or from the fact i have pcos) so hubby stayed either very late or overnight each night i was in so that he could help settle dd and let me sleep in between very frequent feeds to encourage it to come in. my only suggestion to you is to get yourself as much support as you can to help establish breastfeeding if that is your wish. i know at one point i was given an ultimatum, that if my milk hadn't come in by a certain time, they'd HAVE to give DD formula - so i set an alarm and put her on the breast very frequently to help with that. had i not had support (from DH and a couple of BB friends via text) i might have felt it all too hard on top of the induction, and given in - but i told the nurse to pull her head in and just pushed through - and 3+ years later, DD is still feeding!

oh, just thinking of when i came home - i had minimal post partum bleeding when i got home (day 4) and for the next week or more - and then it started again and i ended up passing a very large clot (bigger than DH's fist) - when i rang the midwives at hospital, they said it's quite common for a c/s mumma to have similar happen as they are essentially cleaned out post-partum during the surgery, and may end up with a clot at the cervix which means the blood pools. it scared the bejeepers out of me - would have been nice of them to warn me!