My positive Caesarean birth story.

It's long. God, I can ramble. Anyway, if you have a good sleeper, enjoy, if you don't , you may never reach the end!!!

After developing symptoms of pre eclampsia and being generally unwell, spending several nights incarcerated on the antenatal ward, and many tears and lots of anxiety from me, I finally agreed a delivery date with my consultant of Tuesday 13th April for my elective section. He was going to be performing the op himself which made me feel more confident about the technicalities, but I was so generally anxious about the wellbeing of my baby after my DD ended up in special care that we chose not to tell people ahead of time that I would be delivering that day - only my mum, dad and sister - who were looking after my DD so DH could be with me during the op - knew what was going on!

I went to the hospital on Monday morning for monitoring and to do my pre-clerking for the surgery. I met with the very lovely anaesthetist who went through the checklist with me, discussed my sensitivity to morphine and we reached an agreement that it would be administered to manage pain with a dose of Piriton to be administered to counteract the dreadful itching! I had blood taken, picked up my antacids and anti sickness meds for the night before and was told not to eat from 10pm onwards. I also saw my diabetes consultant and agreed the sliding scale of dextrose/insulin to be administered during the op.

We arrived at the hospital very early - I'd been asked to be there at 7.15 to get started on the insulin drip - handed DD over to my mum and waved them off, and headed to Labour ward. I was taken to a room, where staff sheepishly admitted that they were having trouble getting their hands on the specific concentration of dextrose that my consultant had prescribed. In the meantime a doctor came and put a Venflon in my hand - there wasn't time for Emla cream, they said, and she completely cocked up the first attempt in my left hand and had to try again in my right. It was hellishly painful, but she did say that I had very awkward veins, probably due to the diabetes.

Another doctor came in to go through the procedural risks and get me to sign the consent form. The anaesthetist came and checked everything on the form was correct; a paed registrar was called in to discuss the fact that I'd requested oral vitamin K rather than the injection - he didn't try to argue with me, they were just required to inform me of regular hospital protocol. A student doctor also came in and introduced herself and asked if she could observe my surgery, which I had no problem with.

Bedecked in my ultra sexy hospital gown, I walked to theatre and DH was taken off to scrub up. A local anaesthetic was administered to my back and a FREEZING cold sterilising spray was applied, which made me shriek! As with my previous section, the administration of my spinal anaesthetic took a long time and a lot of tries - I apparently have a vein in the space where the injection is administered, which makes it a tricky procedure, but we eventually got there, my legs began to feel very warm and heavy and I was helped to settle back on the operating table. The drapes were assembled, and my husband appeared as if my magic, in his very sexy scrubs and hat combo.

I was hooked up to a BP monitor, my arms made comfy and the op was underway. By this point I was incredibly anxious, and it felt like a few seconds and simultaneously several hours before I heard a very loud indignant cry! I heard my consultant say ???????drop the drapes??????? and the blue sheet in front of my face was unpegged and pulled down so I could see DS, covered in vernix and looking very cross, being lifted out of my tummy. The relief that he was ok was overwhelming and like a great pansy I burst into tears! He was brought briefly to the head of the table for me to see and I remember thinking ???????blimey, he's a bit huge!??????? before he was taken to be suctioned and checked over.

Once he'd been checked, the midwife brought the scales over to the head of the table, and weighed him in front of us. We were all placing bets on how big he was - I wagered 8 1/2lb! They weighed in kilograms which meant nothing to me, so when she said ???????4.7something kilograms??????? it didn't really register until she got out her conversion chart and loudly announced ???????Ten pounds twelve ounces!???????. I nearly fell off the table!

My ginormous and very lovely baby was then tucked under my gown and covered with a towel so we could have some skin to skin. I was quite happy to lie there and just admire and kiss him a lot, and DH was happy to join in! After a little while he got a weeny bit grunty so he was taken off to be checked by the paediatrician. They gave him a little oxygen and looked him over, but as he was warm and a good colour they let me have him back again.

The obstetrician eventually finished stitching me up, and came to explain that it had taken longer than normal due to a lot of scar tissue from my previous C section, and for that reason he'd also given me a wound drain in case there was a lot of bleeding, this would need to be taken out the following day. Otherwise he said everything had gone fine, and with that I was unceremoniously hefted onto a regular hospital bed and whisked off to the high care ward to recover.

The following 48 hours had their ups and downs - DS was found to have very low blood sugars which meant lots of blood tests and checkups - but the morning after surgery I had my catheter and drain out, took myself off for a well earned shower and was moved to the regular postnatal ward. A day later I was ready to go home - more than ready, the girls on the PN ward all snored! I made a stubborn effort to get myself moving as normally as I could after the surgery and my recovery has been really quick. 13 days after the C section I started driving again with my GP's blessing, and today, 3 weeks to the day after DS's birth, I actually feel completely normal. Not normal enough to contemplate ever going through it all again though.....