Having a C Section is scary. There is no sugar coating that part at all. As someone who had an all natural birth for my 1st child (You can read all about that here) and a surprise C Section for my 2nd (You can also read that story here too!) I would have to say there is nothing that could prepare me for how hard a C Section is. There is so much that they don’t talk about for varies reasons. To say I was unprepared for a c section is an understatement. Sure, I knew it could be possible due to the fact that obviously I knew it could be an outcome of getting pregnant. I never thought it would happen to me though, especially since I had a natural birth for my 1st. I thought hey, if I had a natural birth with my 1st the following ones must follow the same suit right? I was so wrong. Here are the 3 things that I found the hardest with having a C Section.

Mental health is something that obviously can vary drastically from person to person. Before having a C Section I would like to think that I had pretty good mental health. I could handle most situations and what not. Having a C Section for sure impacted my mental health for various reasons. One being that I am unable to do anything. Since you are unable to lift for the first 6 weeks or so, anything heavier than your baby, it really impacted my mental health especially hen it came to not being able to pick up my first son. I am so used to grabbing him up and having hugs and kisses and tickling him on the couch that not being able to do that was really hard for me. Another thing that was hard for me was not doing any house work. No laundry, no dishes because standing for that long was really hard for me, I couldnt even bend over and put my left over food in the compost bin under our kitchen sink. The mental aspect of having to know you are unable to do simple every day tasks is incredible hard to come to terms with especially in my case where I was able to have a fully natural birth before hand and was able to do things pretty normal compared to this.

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The physical recovery I do not think is talked about far enough. The pain you are in for the first about a week and a half was horrible. After having the surgery you are made to get up within 6 hours to walk around. You are encouraged to move around and walk around frequantly. It is really a catch 22 because you are encouraged to move around a lot to help with healing however you also are told to watch you dont push yourself too far because you will really be feeling it. Not to mention in the hospital I was pretty lucky with nurses really taking the time to make sure that I had gotten pain meds at the right times so I was pretty pain free. At home I know I slipped a bit and let to much time pass between doses and I know I was feeling the difference for sure. It was incredibly hard to adjust to getting up in the middle of the night because you really cannot move super fast. I found after the intial days of being home it was hard towards the end of the day. I found I had a lot of energy to start the day and little to no pain. However afternoon I would start to feel a bit sore, and by early evening to over night even just laying on the couch for an hour felt like a bolder was over top of me when I tried to get up.

Asking for help was extremely hard for me. Though I do like having help with certain aspects of my life I really struggled with this. Something as simple as picking up a bag of garbage to change the bag or laundry basket was hard. My first shower back home I also had to ask my partner to help me because bending and twisting in the shower was challenging. He was a huge help to making sure i had everything cleaned and felt fresh. Even getting bottles in the middle of the night because getting up so fast to make sure that my little guy was not super fussy was challenging. Asking for help is hard when you are so used to doing things on your own. Something as simple as turning in the car while waiting on an appointment to look back or pass something to your first son is hard. Getting in and our of a vehicle was hard. I really cannot say what wasn’t hard in the first week anyways. But again, No one really talks about how challenging it is to physically move around after having a C Section. You rarely hear about the aftermath and how you really need to plan things out. I was so thankful to be able to have my spouse home during the holidays and able to have the time off to really help with the first little while.

I know I have said this time and time again, I have no idea how a single mother can physically do this on her own especially if she has had other children before that she needs to take care of also. This was something that I had no idea the scope of how hard it will be until it actually happened. I am thankful that myself and my partner are planning on having 1 more child so that if it did come to another C Section (Which OBVIOUSLY we hope it does not) that I will at least know what to expect for it all. Even talking to people who have had a C Section before really does not prepare you for actually having one. I am glad as I write this I am nearly finished the 6 weeks after (Though obviously this will be schedule long after I have healed!) but I would not wish this on anyone. It is so very hard to remember that this is considered a major surgery.