(Katie Jaques) wrote in message . com...
"Circe" wrote in message news:uAWfb.5660$hp5.1185@fed1read04...
"Liz" wrote in message
om...
Being honest as you ask me to be, I was not in the least bit
afraid, at the time I was excited about meeting my baby. The reason
for me avoiding vaginal delivery again is due to the illness I
suffered post childbirth - I was so ill it spoilt the whole experience
for me and made the first months extremely distressing. This I want
to avoid.

My mother was quite sick for a while after I was born (don't know exactly
how long; she might chime in and tell us since she reads the group
periodically) due to an infected episiotomy stitch. She still went on to
have my sister vaginally with no apparent complications of any sort.



Yes, here I am G. I don't remember exactly how long it took me to
get over the infected stitch; it wasn't more than a week or so,
though. *I* knew something was wrong when we left the hospital, but
neither the doctor nor the nurses could see anything so they assured
me everything was fine ... and then I couldn't go back to the hospital
because the baby couldn't go back to the nursery and there was no way
I was going to stop nursing. So I spent some very painful, difficult
days at home. I had a fever over 102 and was in so much pain that my
husband couldn't even sit on the bed without making me scream.
Getting to the doctor's office was pure agony. Anyway, antibiotics
cleared it up pretty quickly, as I remember.

The reason there are six years between Barbara and her younger sister
is that I was unable to get pregnant because, as it turned out, I had
cysts on both ovaries. In 1969 I had major abdominal surgery to
remove the cysts. Everything went fine and I had no complications,
but it took a good six weeks to feel anything like normal again. I
can't imagine what it would have been like to have had a newborn baby
to care for while recovering from that operation. I would NEVER have
considered an elective C-section for my second baby. As painful as
the complication of the first, vaginal birth was, it was NOTHING
compared to recovering from major surgery.

Grandma Katie
Mom to Barbara (Circe), Grandma to Julian, Aurora & Vernon

************************************************** ******************************

Yet many of my friends and colleagues, 5 in all report no problems in
caring for a newborn post ceasarean. Except one who had an infection
in her scar. I guess that we're all just different as are our
experience of surgey, labour and pain. I was ill with aneamia after
my labour for several months, so my episiotomy, though painful was not
the reason for my bad recovery.

Liz x