hi there,

just prefacing ladies that this one is all about me! and a little long ... hope no one is offended ...

Ok.

Well, I saw the surgeon yesterday.

Better news than we expected, but not as good as we’d hoped.

As we thought, there has been some substantial damage where part of the operation happened, but it’s not all just stitches not healing, some of it is actually the tissue breaking down (the bit of the muscle that had to get fixed is of course currently swollen etc, and so the tissue going over it didn’t like being stretched that far, and so collapsed).

Apparently this breakdown is not a result of anything going wrong - it’s just that I’m young, and so the tissue etc is quite firm and has a high blood flow, and isn’t very giving … so there was a 30% chance of this happening (which I had been told - I just had a very different impression of what would be happening if it brokedown, and so was caught unawares.

BUT it will all apparently heal. And the surgeon (having now seen it) thinks it will be more like 3 months. And the surgeon recognized straightaway what was happening, and could explain it and explain how it will heal - which was somewhat comforting in the circumstances.

Also in the good news category is the confirmation that this won’t affect further pregnancies - there has been a lot of concern for me over the past few weeks that the new injury would mean that my cervix wouldn’t be strong enough to keep a new baby safe and inside my womb, and I’ve been terribly upset about that. But the surgeon has had a good look, and says that the damage is much lower than the cervix, and so it would only be right near the end of the pregnancy that this would be a concern, and so my obstetrician for all future pregnancies will just need to keep a weather eye on the baby's weight, and make sure I get in for a c-section before the baby is too big for me to safely carry. But it will be a matter of whether I get a c-section at 37 weeks of 38 week, not about whether I’m going to miscarry at 22 weeks, or need an emergency c-section at 28 weeks, like I was worrying about.

So that’s also very good news.

In the less good news, the other damage I noticed the day after I got home from hospital is a mistake - the surgeon admitted they’d accidentally nicked me during the surgery, and it’s quite deep, and it’s not healing too well at the moment, and isn’t comfortable … he says it will heal, but he didn’t apologise. So there's a painful, leaking, accidental cut in addition to the break down of vaginal wall and stitch-less perineal cut down there ... bags of fun .... no, really ...

In a mixture of positive and negative, he thinks that the areas which are sore will stop being sore within 6 or so weeks, and the areas which are still numb will mostly be back to normal within 12 months, and possibly as quickly as within the next 6 weeks, too.

The parts which will have scar tissue obviously won’t regain feeling, but the scars should be quite narrow. That’s a very long time, and of course we won’t know until then if it hasn’t worked, and if it’s not back by then, I don’t think there’s anything much they could (or at least, would) do about it, so it sounds a bit “pie in the sky” to talk about … but hopefully it will just be back to normal within the same 6 week time frame.

One strange thing is that the surgeon told me yesterday that he has never had a patient for one of these types of injuries who hasn’t been quite badly traumatized by the entire event, and that it often leads to problems between her and her partner, baby, within herself, etc … so five months after it’s happened, it’s effectively being recommended that I/we consider some counselling … why no one suggested this five months ago I’m not sure … but it’s something DH and I will have to look into … Because what I’m feeling and have been upset about is all (in our opinion) perfectly rational to be upset and angry about, it’s difficult to tell whether there is any “post natal depression” or “post traumatic stress” or just "I've had a horrible birth experience, and will be upset thinking about it for a little while" IYKWIM.

DH and I are going to talk about it and decide what if anything we should do there.

Another negative is that most activities are still completely not allowed for another six weeks … but I am allowed to do gentle exercise, walking, etc, so hopefully I can start to work on losing some of the recovered baby weight (which I’d previously lost!) … and DH was given a Wii with a Wii Fit last weekend from his parents for his birthday/Christmas prezzie - it apparently has yoga on it, so I can do some abdominal and back muscle exercises at home, to try to undo some of the damage from not being able to do any proper exercise for the past 4.5 months …

Definately no sex, sex-like-activities, general fiddling or anything of the kind for quite a while yet, probably 3 months at least. Aaaaargh! Very unhappy. Penetrative sex might be even longer. *wail* And he can't really say whether it will be pleasurable when I *can* do it again, anyway, because it will apparently feel different, and might hurt. Not happy at all, in that department. I think the only sex alternative I'll have for all that time will be eating chocolate. And while that's quite pleasurable, it's just not the same.

But after six weeks, I’ll be seeing the surgeon again, and he should be able to give me a much clearer estimate for healing, when we can look at having another baby, and (God willing) most things will have resolved by then.

So - we’re that I’m all healed soon, maybe even before Christmas.

I would love to get to the end of the year, and just to be able to put all the negatives of this behind us, and just concentrate on the positives.

It's all still pretty raw emotionally, quite upsetting, partly sore, party numb, but God willing we're on the right track ...