The Hard Part: Recovery

When I had Isaac, I barely skipped a beat.  I stayed in my bed for about 24 hours, then was on my feet and doing fine.  The day we went home (Day 4) I went for about a mile walk and felt so great.  I never took narcotics after day 3 and had such an easy time.

This time not-so-much.  I was told the second c-section is more difficult recovery because of all the scar tissue they have to get through.  Then adding a tubal ligation (which I didn't think would cause any discomfort at the time) it's been rough.  I'm sure it's not this way in every second/third c-section but it sure was for me.

I stayed in bed for about 12 hours then they wanted me to get on my feet.  I needed 2 Percocet and 2 ibuprofen to get the nerve to do it.  It was painful, really painful but I did it.  Every time I got out of bed going forward it was still really, really painful.  But hey, I just had major abdominal surgery right?

On the second day I was drinking some water and swallowed wrong which started a chain reaction of coughing.  I mean serious, trying not to choke coughing.  If you've ever had a c-section you know hard coughing and laughing are pretty much the most painful activities ever.  I felt the pain from the coughing for at least 24 hours.

When we went home I was trying to not take any narcotics because they can pass through into breast milk but are at pretty low levels that Dr's feel comfortable giving it to you.  That lasted about 12 hours and I had Bryce going to CVS at 10 pm to pickup my prescription.

On day 5, I started having burning pain at the location of my internal incisions if I was on my feet more than 2 min.  I mean BURNING pain.  It felt like someone was poking a cigar into my insides.  We had a pediatrician appointment that morning and my OB's office is next door so I popped in to see if they could see me.  Luckily they fit me in and my Dr said this was normal (she has had 2 c sections herself). It's especially normal after a second/third c-section.  She said take it easy and if I got a fever or any other sign of infection then I should call back.

On day 6 I still had burning pain and was popping narcotics 3x's each day along with ibuprofen.

On day 7, miraculously I got up and despite being stiff and still sore, I didn't feel the burning pain.  I only took ibuprofen all day and felt so much better.  This was lucky because we had our newborn pictures and I didn't want to look like I was in pain.

Today is day 8 and I'm still doing pretty well.  We went the grocery store and by the end of the (short) trip around the store I was pretty sore but no burning pain, thankfully.

After this past week, I am so thankful there will be no more babies.  I'm getting too old for this!