Caesarean is one of those weird words that looks like it's never spelt right. My eyes keep wandering up to the title of this post double-checking my spelling. It's also one of those words I never thought I would have to spell because I never thought I would be a caesarean mama. I had always believed that if I had singleton babies (twins don't run in my family) and kept myself healthy I would always be able to have natural deliveries. Turns out some things are out of my control. I don't really know why I'm writing this post anyways. It probably has something to do with the fact that from the moment I found out I would have to have a caesarean I didn't really sleep until I had read absolutely every search result on google about the topic, which included a lot of blog posts written by caesarean mamas about their experience. So I guess I have decided to write my own. And I've chosen to share this photo since it was taken 3 days after my caesarean, the day after I was discharged from the hospital, at my best friend's wedding where I had the honour of walking - very slowly - down the aisle as her bridesmaid. I cannot emphasize how slowly I walked, haha. C-section recovery is no joke, and that's what this post is about.
It seems to me that I've had a pretty good c-section recovery, at least compared to many horror stories that I read online, I'm only discouraged when I compare where I'm at right now to where I was 3 months postpartum the first time around - after a natural delivery. With Emery I felt almost as though I bounced back to my old self, whereas this time it's been more of a crawl, or like a extremely slow and dramatic wedding processional haha.
However, the advice that I had (obsessively) read online definitely helped speed up recovery the first few days, and that advice was get up and get moving. There's all these checks that the nurses have to run you through the days in the hospital and I was chomping at the bit for each one. Initially they just want to make sure your digestive system is flowing again (it's a pretty major abdominal surgery so obviously that's a biggie) and ease you back into eating, but since my surgery kept getting delayed until I was at the very end of the day I had been starving going into the operatory. I had read that after recovery they would get me to eat some ice chips, then sip some water, work my way up to juice then finally let me have a little dinner if all went well and I'd kept the liquids down, but I was desperate to get some food in my belly so as soon as I got into recovery I asked for ice chips and water. Then when I got to my room in the maternity ward I asked for juice and the nurse was all "well we'll start you off with some ice chips" and I was like "I've done the ice chips and water, let me drink some juice and get to dinner", haha. Anyway, I held it all down fine I'm a champion eater ;)
At the 12 hour mark you have to have the catheter removed and get out of bed. I had been very scared for this moment, thanks to the horror stories, but I knew that the key to a quick recovery was to get moving soo up out of bed I got. It didn't hurt the way I thought it would. I thought it would feel like my insides would fall out but it actually was like an intense burning sensation, like acid was fizzing along the incision line. So, yes, it was painful but no insides-falling-out-ness so... yay? Once I was up I really didn't want to lie back down (the getting up and down part is the hardest). My nurse wanted to give Sully a bath in a room down the hall so I asked if I could walk down there. She was worried about me moving too much too soon so she said no, so I told her that I had to stay moving to speed up the recovery because I had a wedding to be in in two days. She thought I was crazy and brought me a wheelchair, ha!
The drugs you get after a caesarean are so good. I'd never had any kind of painkiller beyond Tylenol before that but the stuff I got after surgery was really strong. I didn't really realize how strong until they started wearing off. I understood then why the nurse was concerned about too much too soon because the painkillers were blocking everything. Once I was weaned off the heavy duty stuff laughing, coughing and sneezing were my worst nightmares. Unfortunately, I had a small cold and I love to laugh. The only time I cried from pain while in the hospital was the second night when my husband and I were watching an episode of Mr. D on our laptop (all teacher friends- watch this show it's so ridiculous and hilarious) and we burst out laughing during a hilarious scene. I then burst into tears because the pain was so shocking, but it was too late - my husband and I had already caught the giggles. We literally couldn't stop laughing even though it hurt unspeakably bad and I was so mad at him that he kept making me crack up. I finally got out of bed and went to the bathroom (which is a big deal, as I said the getting up and down part was the hardest) and locked myself in. When I was calmed down I told him through the bathroom door that I was going straight to sleep and he couldn't talk to me again until morning so he wouldn't make me laugh.
Anyways, I passed all of the nurses checks and was discharged after the usual two nights. Unfortunately, when they send you home you are weaned down to just Advil and Tylenol. Like, lots of Advil and Tylenol, but it's still not enough. I remember when my OB came in to see me before I was discharged I told him I was scared to go home because my bed at home doesn't have buttons to raise and lower it to help me in and out. I was actually scared I would get stuck in my own bed - or worse, not be able to get in it! Don't worry, I did figure out a very awkward getting in and out of bed procedure that I basically still have to do because HELLO useless post caesarean abdominals. Or like, it's not even that they're useless - it's that they're not even there. They've completed disappeared.
Is it poor writing form to begin every paragraph with "anyways"? Anyways, I continued forcing myself to get up and walk around the hospital and then my house once I was discharged, but day three postpartum - the wedding - I was still on my feet so much longer than I had been previously and I got pretty sore. Mostly in my lower back because it was compensating for my lack of abdominals. And my incision was quite sore because I just could not stop laughing. Weddings are such blissful events and what can I say, my friends are pretty funny! The tickly throat/ cough caused extra pain too. It was all so worth it to get to be a part of my best friend's big day! Once I had made it through the wedding though I let myself really relax and recover for the the rest of the first week. We then started going for short walks to parks in the neighbourhood. Sometime in the second week my incision had healed enough that I felt comfortable wearing Sully in an Ergo carrier and increasing walking distance. At exactly the two week mark I started going for longer, like 5km-ish, walks and kept slowly increasing from there. At the three week mark I started pushing Emery in the stroller during walks while wearing Sully (before then I was walking just with Sully so I didn't have to push anything). You're not supposed to push even a grocery cart until 6 weeks post caesarean, but Emery would walk for most of our walks so I would mostly just be pushing an empty stroller (she would just hop in it for breaks) so I felt like that was okay. I also started lane swimming again as soon as I got the green light from my doctor at my six week check-up.
Now, at three months postpartum, I'm really starting to feel like me again (physically I mean). Being able to swim definitely has helped with that as it's my favourite thing to do when I get some me-time. I waited a couple of extra weeks before starting to run again because the incision area was still sore, but now although it's still a bit tender to touch (mostly just when Emery head butts it, which happens all the time) running doesn't aggravate it and getting back into running shape has actually been smoother than I thought it would be! Although the healing has been so much slower this time around compared to a "natural" delivery (I always feel weird using the word natural since I was induced) we're getting there! So I'm just throwing this post out into the world because maybe there are other mamas out there obsessively google searching like I had been (come on I can't be the only one!) and don't want to read yet another list of what extra items you need to bring to the hospital for a caesarean, but instead just a rambly mama's random thoughts on recovering from one. This is my no means a birth story, because I've hardly mentioned Sullivan at all and there were some pretty special moments during his birth and our time in the hospital with him.
C-section recovery is no joke, but absolutely 100% worth it
xo.
Ashley, you are such a machine! So incredible this story. And I truly can’t believe you were a bridesmaid just three days later. Such a trooper. Xx
Posted by: Leigh | 11/02/2017 at 04:57 PM