Big Knickers

 So I thought I would take this moment in our story to talk about caesarean sections. I certainly had no idea about the full impact of a C-section before I had mine, we just don't really talk about it. Understandably child birth it is a very personal experience, as are all experiences in life. There are elements of the aftermath that everyone will experience and I thought I would start with those. Then I will explain my personal experience. I would like to point out that I am unlikely to ever experience natural childbirth so I will never have a comparison.

I don't know about you ladies, but when I go knicker shopping I always see those huge knickers, that look like they come up to your armpits, and think my god please do not let a time come when I have to buy those knickers. I like a nice pair, that make me feel good, I am not likely to buy 'comfy' undies. So it turns out one of the occasions you need such huge knickers is when you've had a C-section. Normal, hip-level knickers would rub against your wound. It is just another way that something so silly makes you feel so separate from the person you are. 

You have to inject yourself in the thigh for a week afterwards as there is a risk of blood clots after a C-section. It was horrible, I hated it. You have to fight every urge you have to stop yourself being stabbed in the leg. The midwife showing me how to do it offered up that Aly could do it for me. He went white when she suggested it, but obviously would have done so have I have wanted him to but, there was no way I wanted him to be under that pressure. So I had to suck it up. It knocked me sick doing it. 

Before you are discharged you have to have been to the toilet for, well lets call it, a number 1 and a number 2. Also, I had to remove my dressing. Everyone who knows me well knows how often I go to the toilet so a number 1 was no problem at all. Done. In the shower on Sunday morning I took off my dressing. That wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. It was like a huge plaster so I just carefully pulled it off, and I tried to have a look. It looked rather (understatement) sore and red raw, and the dissolvable stitches were still obvious. I did feel a little nauseous. I was really quite shaky having to remove it myself. So then the last on the list. Never, in my life, have I feared a number 2 more. It happened, job done, discharged with my injections and pain killers.

Throughout pregnancy I had had issues with my sciatica. When I was in hospital it wasn't a huge problem as the beds sit you up at an angle. Once I was discharged I returned to a 'normal' bed - obviously not my bed but a regular bed. My sciatica really flared up, so I had to sleep with pillows bunched up under my knees. Then there was getting out of bed... it was horrible. I had pain in my lower back / top of my bum and I had had my lower abs sliced through. I literally had no muscles for getting out of bed that didn't really hurt. I would wake up, usually really needing the toilet, and I would be holding that in with probably the only muscles I had left working in my core. I obviously managed to get up but it didn't half take a huge effort to. The painkillers were horrible too, particularly the strongest ones - which I think were morphine but I can't really remember. I started to feel that my insides were shaking whenever I took them so eventually I just gave them up. I put my pain to one side really due to the situation we were in. I have recently learnt as part of my degree a lot about how pain can be dulled by not paying attention to it, I feel that is what happened really. Also, I don't really like taking pills so I often just sit with pain, especially under those circumstances I just knew that I had had an operation and so I would be in pain. This acceptance helped me cope with it. 

In general I found it really hard to accept I needed help with things like carrying chairs and shopping and not being able to walk far. I am very independent and I pushed my luck a few times. I just hated that I had to ask nurses to get me a chair to sit on, to me they were so busy and doing such more important work than getting me a chair. That is absolutely not what they wanted me to feel like though and I often got a little telling off if they caught me getting my own chair. One time I went to Morrisons. Aly was back in work and we needed some food in. It was stupid, I bought too much, which was not very much to a normally fit me, and it took me a long time to walk back with it. Such a fool. To make matters worse those metal hooks for their plastic bags were just at the perfect height of my wound and I caught it. It felt like I had been stabbed with a sharp knife. 

Just in case you are wondering - that is my scar. I am so proud of it now. Thanks to that scar Evelyn was here and we were lucky to spend 15 weeks with her.