Aha! I was a little confused, I had an episiotomy with my son (36 stitches - 3 rows of 12) and the scar goes from the bottom of my fufu to my butthole. I had to sit in salty water every couple of hours, and hold a maternity pad against my stitches when having a poo. I took anti inflammatories for the pain..but to be honest I wasn't in agony or anything, it was more uncomfortable than anything. I found sitting on a rolled up towel (like a donut) helped alot. I was too busy ogling my new born and feeding to feel the stitches. I have always wanted to know what a 'normal' amount of stitches for an episiotomy is but can't find out that information. The ob's and midwives just ignore that question and move on to the rest of the labour questions.

As for the tearing, I only found out this pregnancy that I also tore. My doctor told me while she was doing an internal. And it is on the inside of my fufu extending to the outer area. This is wear I have all this blue/purple swollen lumpy bits that ache from time to time so I don't know what happened there. I didn't even know I had one but it certainly explains the lumpyness this pregnancy..I thought I was prolapsing!

As a result of the epi and the tear I was already considering a c section this time to escape any possibility of it happening again. Even though I know it's not always the case. But in the end I had other reasons that convinced the Ob to do a c section this time. Now I get to feel how much a c sections hurts to recover from, I have heard it can be a more painful recovery than an epi or tear!

And they call us the weaker sex... If a bloke had a rip in his ball bag you'd never hear the end of it and the tear would gradually get larger with everytime the story was told.