I spent the majority of my first pregnancy wondering what labor and delivery would feel like. I went back and forth about pain relief options and how I wanted to labor and where. We took a childbirth class that focused almost exclusively on vaginal deliveries, and somewhere around 33 weeks I decided that I needed an epidural because I did not want to feel anything. At 34 weeks we found out Chloe was breech and would be scheduling a c-section if she didn’t move head down. I felt like we’d wasted time and money on the childbirth class. It barely scraped the surface of what a c-section was like, so I really went into mine without having a clue what to expect. I knew a handful of people that had had one, but none of them were planned and no one had a positive story to tell. They mostly complained about the recover,y but I was more interested in knowing what the actual procedure would be like. I did have a positive c-section birth, but I thought I’d share the ins and outs of getting a scheduled c-section… you know, the stuff no one ever tells you.

1. You have to walk to the operating room.
I thought I was going to crap my pants when the nurse came and got me to escort me to the operating room. She wanted me to walk? I felt like I was walking to my sudden death.

But then, I was TRICKED! With my second c-section, I was wheeled into the operating room. I thought I would like this better but it turned out I didn’t like walking to or being wheeled to surgery.

2. It’s freaking cold in there.
Maybe it’s because you’re half naked or are hooked up to an IV with fluids that feel like ice running through your veins, or maybe they really do have the thermostat set to -100*.  Either way, it’s flipping freezing in the OR. They gave me super warm blankets to warm up and I decided right then and there that I needed warm blankets on me at all times. It was like being wrapped in a cocoon and semi distracting at the time.

3. You might feel a little tugging… or you might not.
I’ve heard that if you have an epidural, you’ll feel tugging and pressure but if you have a spinal you won’t feel anything.  I don’t know if there’s any truth to that, but I did have a spinal both times and didn’t feel anything the first time. I was absolutely clueless as to what they were doing and actually had no idea that they’d even begun the surgery. I remember them telling me that my husband would come into the OR once surgery had begun, so imagine my complete surprise when he was suddenly sitting beside me (and I realized what was going on!).

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4. Your anesthesiologist will be your best friend. 

The guy who gave me my spinal sat by my head the entire surgery. All I could see were his eyes and let me tell you, they were the most gorgeous baby blues I have ever seen. I don’t know if it was the spinal or his eyes, but I was in a complete trance. And then I remembered that I was completely naked on the other side of the blue curtain and he knew what my nakedness looked like, and my husband was sitting beside me. The anesthesiologist made sure I was super comfortable the entire time though.

This was true the second time around as well. Hot anesthesiologist with a sense of humor who made sure I didn’t feel pain. Winning!

5.  You get a catheter… and it doesn’t completely suck.
Let’s be honest, after getting up to pee 28373838 times a night for the last ten months, not having to get up for 24 hours is practically a vacation. A catheter is inserted after the spinal so you don’t even feel it going in and it doesn’t hurt when it’s pulled out either. You’ll be asked to monitor your urine output for 12 hours afterward so be sure to drink tons of water.

6. A nurse is going to massage your uterus.
My friend told me that after her baby was delivered vaginally, someone manually massaged her stomach to help the uterus compress. I figured since they were scooping everything out of me I wouldn’t have this done to me, but surprise! They do. Every 15 minutes for an hour. And it hurts. Morphine, please!

7. Leg accessories & shaking
I went from being freezing cold in the OR to sweating like crazy in recovery. Leg compressors were wrapped tightly around both legs. They’re there to prevent blood clots in your legs, but they’re kind of awkward and my calves sweat so badly in them. They were taken off once I was able to start walking a few hours after surgery.

And, thanks to a hormone crash you shake like a Polaroid picture. It wasn’t as bad the second time as it was the first, but I definitely wasn’t expecting that at all!

7.  They make you move to your own bed.
Two hours after surgery they make you move from your gurney into your hospital bed. I was worried I was going to fall in between the two beds but I didn’t, and I somehow managed to scoot my butt from the gurney to my bed.

8. They’re still all up in your business.
Since my kid exited from an incision and not vaginally, I didn’t expect anyone and everyone to be up in my business. Every few hours someone was coming to check on my incision and someone else would come and check on my vagina. I heard that you lose all sense of shame after giving birth, and boy isn’t that the truth! The same night I had Chloe two nurses came into my room and helped me go to the bathroom… not because I had to (I still had a catheter in) but because they wanted to see the size of the clots I was passing.  Fun.  I joked that I normally don’t go this far on the first date but they weren’t amused.

9. Drugs are good, mmmmkay?
I am a big fat wuss when it comes to pain so I welcomed any and all forms of pain medication offered to me. I was given IV pain meds for the first 24 hours then alternated Percocet and iibuprofenfor the duration of my hospital stay.

Here’s the part that sucks: they’ll give you IV pain meds without asking, but you have to request oral meds. I was given Percocet every 4 hours and iibuprofenevery 6, but never at the same time, so it was easy to lose track of when I had which pill last and I always forgot to write it down!

TIP: record the time of your pill request on your phone so the nurses don’t think you’re a closet junkie.

9. Everyone wants you to fart. It’s all they talk about.
My mom used to tell us that we couldn’t talk about poop and farts at the dinner table, but after surgery everyone and their mother wants to know if you’ve farted yet and if it hurt when you did. I happily accepted the Colace they gave me, and some ginger ale helped me pass gas. It wasn’t nearly as intimidating and painful as I expected it to be, so there’s that! Tip: Take Colace religiously. You’ll be glad you did. 

But let’s get real: no one talks about postpartum pooping either, so I’ll take one for the team. IT SUCKS. Nothing prepares you for it. I was terrified I would pop my internal stitches from pushing so hard. I had to send my husband to get suppositories while I sat on the toilet because lord help me, if I got off there was no way I would ever get back on.

Tip: have suppositories on hand. Take Colace around the clock. Eat fiber. Drink water. I did all of the above (minus the meds!) and nothing worked, but at least I can say I tried.

10. Laughing (and sneezing, pooping and coughing..) is no laughing matter.
I was more scared to laugh than I was to fart. The first time someone made me laugh, I tried to stifle it and I’m pretty sure I pulled a muscle doing so. I was told to hold a pillow against my incision to help getting out of bed, laugh, couch or sneeze. It sort of helped, but I thought my belly binder did a much better job. It’s definitely not a walk in the park, but it passes pretty quickly. “The worst” only lasted a few days.

11. Your incision isn’t as scary as you think it’ll be.
I was really grossed out and didn’t want to look at my incision site, but I did ask my husband to check on it every day. I was terrified of getting an infection but was also scared to look at it myself. When I finally did, I was shocked at how clean and small it was. I’m going to pretend like I don’t know how they got an entire person out of that tiny cut! My steristrips fell off after about two weeks but my cut was pretty much healed long before that… which also surprised me! My scar was virtually non-existent after it healed.

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Is there anything you’d add to this list?