Hello i am opting for a planned c section with my second baby due to health reasons, can anyone please share their experiences.
i had an emergency section with my first baby, but im wanting to know what a planned one is like,
whats the recovery like?
how long does it take?
whats the procedure?
whats the prep for it?
that kinda thing
im feeling a little anxious!
thanks xx
Hiya, I had a planned C section for my first and only due to health reasons. To be honest, I don't think I'd want to give birth any other way. The prep is just like any other day surgery - you're invited in to see the registrar a few days before and then you just turn up in the morning on your date. You have to be NIL by mouth from about 9pm the previous night and we had to arrive at 7am. The only down part is that as a planned, you are automatically bumped back if there is an emergency c-section (obviously). We had been booked as second in line, so approx 8.30am, but there were an exceptional number of emergencies that morning, so we were moved from the ward into the kitchen which was tough because I had to remain NIL by mouth whilst watching other mothers stuffing massive bags of wotsits down their mouths. We didn't get into surgery until 2.30pm - so you can imagine how thirsty, hungry and tired I was. It all happened quite quickly after such a long wait. My husband was with me and he held me as they put the needle into my spine and an epidural into my shoulder. Once they kicked in, I was fine. There's a lot of pushing and shoving and it did feel as though one of the surgeons was jumping on my stomach at one point, but with the screen up you can't see anything - although hubby could but he held it together. Then hey presto, there's a baby coming over the screen to say hello. I got to see him briefly before my hubby was whisked away with baby behind the screen and they let him cut the chord, weighed and had his tag put on. Then baby was given right back to me, under my nightdress so we could go immediately skin to skin without him being cleaned up etc. One of the nurses said "he'll poo on you!", but I didn't care and he didn't poo on me...or if he did, I never noticed. He was screaming and screaming and screaming and it was absolutely amazing and he was left there until they'd finished removing the placenta and tidying me up. In fact, I suffer from keloid skin and the surgeon actually cleaned up a load of scar tissue from previous abdominal surgery at the same time to leave me with a much nicer scar. Once I was done, they wrapped baby up and put him in the desert trolley and by hubby pushed him to the recovery room with me. We were in recovery for about 4 hours because there was a delay in getting a free bed. The main problem I had started then, which was that my milk hadn't had the necessary trigger from childbirth to come through. I had nurses thrusting my childs head at my tits and/or pinching my nipples in the most violent way and hardly anything was coming out. In hindsight I should have told them to lay off but there is a massive pressure to do it in a rush, their way rather than calmly, by getting to know your baby. We were kept in 5 days in the end because of baby's weight loss due to the fact that the midwives wouldn't let me feed him formula and he became severely jaundiced and underweight. But once we'd returned home and I had power pumped for another 5 days and his mouth had grown out of it's tiny tongue tie, that all sorted itself out. If you've already had an emergency, then it's basically exactly the same but just a lot more relaxed - like getting up and going to a strange hotel for some major surgery, where you come out with another baby.
Good Luck! You'll do just fine xx
Thank you to all who have replied, i have really enjoyed reading your replies (well besides the first one lol)
you have all really helped me and made me feel a bit more at ease!
hopefull15 i remember that jumping on your chest sensation from my emergency section, it was rather scary as i didnt know what to expect!
Btrouble congratulations on the unexpected arrival of your twins
xx