C-Sections: 9 Things You Wish They Told You
[Reading time: 10 mins]
I MUST start with my DISCLAIMER:
I am NOT a doctor.
I am NOT a psychologist.
I am NOT giving medical advice.
What I AM is a Mother who has MY OWN personal experiences. That is what I will share here.
C-Sections
If this topic wasn’t enough indication…. yes, I gave birth to all my kids via c-section. For medical reasons, I didn’t have a choice on my delivery and I’ve known since I was 18 that c-sections were in my future- so you would think that I’d be mentally prepared to have one. Nope! There’s so many “surprises” that for some reason are never discussed. So let’s change that!
I’m here to give you the scoop on all the things you really wish someone had told you about c-sections. Please note, this list is not meant to scare you, but rather to just inform and mentally prepare you for what’s to come.
Photo via gettyimages.com
01. You can’t eat or drink less than 6hrs before your surgery.
Ok, so they actually do tell you this. But it’s still a blow when you don’t know you’ll be wheeled into the hospital that day.
Let me take a step back: with both my two older kids, my pregnancy didn’t make it to the scheduled c-section date. With my daughter, my water broke [funnily enough it happened at the salon where I was getting a pedicure… but that’s a different story for another time!] and with my older son, I was at the doctor’s office already getting a stress test and they found that my amniotic fluid was getting too low.
I was very lucky that it wasn’t an emergency, but of course, both times, I had *just* had breakfast about an hour beforehand. So what happened? They still had to admit me into the ward and hook me up onto all the machines to be monitored, but I had to wait a full 6 hours in the hospital bed before I finally went into surgery.
When it’s your 1st time, those 6 hours are just filled with so much anxiety, excitement and every other emotion you can think of. When it’s your 2nd time…. I guess you still feel all those emotions, but I think for me, the overpowering emotion was extreme boredom. To the point to where I asked the nurses if I could please go back to work and just button up my projects and clean up my desk since I was leaving work 4 days earlier than expected….. they of course said ‘no’. =P
02. Your naked body will be placed in the most awkward position with doctors and nurses all around you.
If you’ve ever been embarrassed about your body, now is the time to buck up [same could be said for a vaginal delivery too of course]. Luckily, I’ve never been one to be too shy about being naked in front of doctors [only!]. But it’s still an awkward feeling and the worst is, is that there’s nothing you can do about it.
Yes, you will have a hospital gown on but that doesn’t matter. It starts when you’re given the anesthesia and the back of the gown is wide open with your butt hanging out, feeling the breeze. Then you’re frozen on the table, gown pulled up, bottom half all visible for everyone to see. There are so many doctors and nurses in the surgery room, you will feel like you’re a science experiment.
03. You will not be able to move your arms and then the anesthesia will soon kick in… rendering you completely immobile.
This is probably the most unsettling part of having a c-section. There’s nothing worst than being absolutely frozen and not able to move. At that moment, you just have to take deep breaths, relax your body and put your complete trust in everyone that is in that room.
Your arms will be stretched out to the side in a “T” position and you will be instructed to not move them. I have heard of some hospitals actually strapping your arms down too, to ensure you don’t move them around. But even if they’re not strapped down, your arms will start to feel heavy from the medications and you eventually won’t be able to move them much at all.
The medications will also cause you to feel shaky and cold. Your brain will recognize that feeling, but your body won’t allow you to truly feel the extent of it throughout your body.
04. Don’t look up at the overhead surgical light for fear that you will see a reflection of what’s going on.
Yep. I’m speaking from experience. You’re naked & cold, feeling awkward with everything going on and you can’t move. The best thing to do is just focus and stare at whatever is in front of you. And what’s in front of you? The overhead surgical light.
If you’ve ever looked closely at a surgical light, there are little mirror reflections in them. And when you’re focusing hard enough to try and distract you from everything else going on, well, you will soon notice the reflections of what’s going on behind that curtain. And believe me, that is not something you want to see. Find something else to focus on!
05. You will feel weird sensations and will hear strange sounds.
I want to start out on a positive note for this one. I’m sure you are worried about what you will be feeling and if it hurts. It truly does not hurt in the moment and you will not feel the cut or any kind of pain in that sense. The type of sensations you will feel though are that of tugging and prodding. I know that sounds very uncomfortable, and well… it is. But it’s nothing more than that.
In addition to the weird movements you’ll feel, you will also hear a lot of squishing and suctioning noises. It sounds like a bunch of slugs moving around and then a vacuum comes in to suck them all up.
06. After all that, you won’t even be able to hold your baby right away.
When your baby [or babies ;)] finally comes out, your partner or the nurse [if there is no partner present], will bring your baby over to you so you can see them. However, you are still cut open and you still can’t move- which means, you will not be able to hold your baby. They will do their best to do direct skin-to-skin but that is only for a short moment before they will eventually need to put the baby in someone’s secure arms.
My husband was in the room with me for all my c-sections, so he was able to sit right next to me with our newborn[s] in hand. But it’s a very distressing feeling- your baby is finally here and you can’t touch them. You can only turn your head to the side and look at them.
07. You will be on the table for another 20-40 mins and still won’t be able to hold your baby.
That’s right. The stitching up takes longer than the actual delivery itself. On average, it should take about 20-30 mins, but there could be instances where it’s another 40-60 mins. Prepare yourself - that’s just even more time where you’re laying down cold & naked, immobile, people all around you and you still can’t hold your baby. Time goes so slow and all you want is to just finally be sewn up.
08. The transfer from the operating table to the rolling hospital bed will make you feel like a corpse.
You’re finally put back together - it really is such a relief! But now you need to be transferred to the rolling hospital bed to go in to the recovery room. Problem is… you still can’t move.
I honestly don’t know if I can even describe this part. There’s a lot of rolling and lifting by the doctors & nurses, and trying to move your body in ways to get the hospital liners under you to use it to lift your dead weight. This is all while your hospital gown is still not covering much and you’re flashing your goodies all over the place. But at this point, you know you are almost out of there and can finally hold your baby!
09. After all that, you’ll be holding your baby and will forget everything that happened prior to that moment.
I know I’ve been all Negative Nancy and dismissive about c-sections, but the fact is, no matter if you have a c-section or a vaginal delivery, the entire process from the start of pregnancy to delivery is a constant flow of awkwardness, uncertainty and patience to the end. But the time has finally come, your baby has come out and now you’re holding this little thing in your arms and wondering how you all got there. And so it doesn’t matter what happened during your time in the surgery room; now it’s just time to focus on the future and the new addition you’ve just brought into the world.
BONUS: Recovery Tips
Recovery will be slow and can take awhile.
Your doctor will be advising you to take it easy for the next 4-8 weeks. Listen to them! A c-section is not an easy recovery and your body needs time to heal. And the fact is, if you don’t give yourself enough time to recover, you can actually make your body worse, causing the recovery time to go even longer.
If you can, plan to have a helping hand around for at least a few days.
Whether it’s your partner, a family member or a friend, you will absolutely need someone to help with the baby and even just daily tasks. For at least a few days, you will have a hard time walking, getting up from the couch and just overall moving. It’s hard, because you will want to get up and do things, but I can’t reiterate enough, that you should not push it.
If there are older siblings in the family, make arrangements for them to NOT be home when you come home with the new baby.
Probably like you, I had this grand dream that we were going to come home with our 2nd child and our oldest (2.5 years old at the time) was going to be all lovey and Ms. Perfect older sister. Umm. Dream ON. There are a lot of changes that just happened. Not only is the older sibling transitioning with a new baby in the home, you have also been gone for at least 3 days. Do you think they’re going to understand that Mommy can’t play with you right now? Or that Mommy can’t walk over to you very quickly and needs time for recovery? “Sorry honey, I can’t pick you up right now”. I promise you, it will be so much better for EVERYONE if you come home with no one else there and settle in with your partner [if you have one] and your newborn. Have your “helper” put things away, get necessary supplies out: diapers, wipes, etc. Just give it 1-2hrs to mentally prepare yourself, and then you can have the older sibling(s) come home.
Get up and move around when you can.
Ok, I know this is contradictory to everything I’ve just been saying, but you also don’t want to be stagnant on the couch for the next week. At a VERY SLOW pace, start getting up every 20-30 mins and just waddle yourself over to the other side of the room and back. Those slow movements will be good for your body and for your overall recovery.
What questions do you have about c-sections? Or what are your personal experiences with c-sections? I would love to hear! Comment below or shoot me an email: with4kidsintow@gmail.com
Head lice has a negative stigma to it, but there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of if someone in your household gets it! And if you are like me, and you have no idea what to do if someone gets lice, the last thing you want is to be in a huge pinch, if and when it does happen to you.