Hi - I had an emergency CS the first time and an elective one the second.

The day after the elective one I thought I'd never be normal again and wondered why I'd chosen to have Alex that way.

You hear about women having natural births and going home later that day, I would much rather have done that, but my first labour/birth was a nightmare and I was scared to go through that again.

I probably got over both of them around the same, I think the elective just seemed worse as I knew what was going on the whole time before, during and after.

When there is no medical reason for an elective, you wonder if you're doing the right thing - I'll never know if my second would have come on his own accord or if he would have been two weeks late and not responding to the gel, drip, ARM etc ...

So for me - no real difference.

barb.