recovery 2nd time around?

[~mamaspice~]

Hi Danielle,

I can sooo understand your aprehension for having another caesarean. It sounds like you had a really rough time with your recovery 1st time round. Which hospital did you have bub at? Maybe if you end up having another caesar you could talk to them about your concerns and maybe they could look at doing things differently. When I had my caesarean (which ended up being under a general anaesthetic ) I didn't have morphine for pain relief, but I did have capadex tablets (similar to panadiene forte apparently) and voltaren suppositories. I know the thought of suppositories doesnt sound great but seriously I had virtually no pain - just a little discomfort. Also my incision was closed using staples which were taken out 4 days post OP and I had absolutely no probs with the scar. Just a thin line and I was pretty much fully recovered within 3-4 weeks.

If you don't mind me asking, how far overdue did you go with your first bub before you had the elective caesar?

My elective caesar at 38 weeks was because I had PE and bubs head wasn't engaged so my Ob told me an induction wouldn't have worked. I have to say that I fully regret having the caesarean at that point as in reality the PE hadn't gotten to a dangerous stage and I had a really hard time coming to terms with having been knocked out. I felt like I had no birth experience and it also seems a bit weird to me that I haven't even got a clue what a single contraction feels like.

I will be attempting a VBAC for my next baby as I don't think I could handle it if I had a caesarean and had to get knocked out again. I am going to tell the hospital that I want to allow myself to go a week overdue and that I will be happy to have daily monitoring to ensure that bub is still completely healthy. Maybe that is an option you could look at and at least if you don't go into labout by 41 weeks you'll know that perhaps a caesar is mean't to be.

Also you can do things to make you caesar a more pleasant experience such as ask for skin to skin with bubs while you are in theatre and while you are in recovery. Also if you're keen you could ask them to take down the screen so you could see bub being delivered.

:hugs: Hugs to you and all the best with your decision. Let us know what you decide.