When faced with the reality that a cesarean was going to be my only option, 5 weeks ago, though I had many reservations and concerns, few were regarding the recovery period that would follow.  My first two children were born by cesarean, and – really? – I didn’t have much objection to how long it took me to be “back to normal”…if “normal” can be called that with a huge gash across one’s abdomen that had not previously been there.  In any case, I figured this time around would be no different.  I didn’t consider that being 8 years older, or four babies later, or even having my insides cut open and rearranged for the third time, among other things, would affect my ability to recover.  I was hoping that, at least, this part would go right.

At first, everything seemed to go as I expected.  Standing and walking didn’t pose any greater challenge than previously, my incision appeared to be healing well, and I was allowed to go home after 36 hours.  The day after coming home, though, I got the most excruciating headache ever – and I’m not entirely unfamiliar with brutal headaches.  After trying Tylenol, and caffeine and water with absolutely no effect, we realized that this was a spinal headache – what my anesthesiologist claimed he’d only seen twice in 24 years, and which was only relieved by laying flat on my back.  Perhaps being forced to lie flat on your back doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world, but when trying to nurse a baby, it becomes inconvenient, and when you have a just-starting-to-heal abdomen, it’s also incredibly painful.  The solution, then, was to get a dural blood patch.  What is that?  Well, it’s when they take an epidural needle (or a slightly larger one when they don’t have any of the usual size available), stick it into the spinal column (while admonishing you because you aren’t adequately tightening your incredibly sore belly in order to round your spine, which is reflexively arching in pain in spite of the claims that it shouldn’t hurt at all because a local anesthetic has been injected) then draw blood from an arm and inject it into the spine until it feels like a horrible muscle cramp, and then inject some more in until it officially becomes the worst pain thus far in the whole labor-surgery-recovery-headache course of events.  But it worked, and over the course of the next day, or so, the headache subsides.

At this point, I thought things should be getting easier.  After my previous cesareans, it took about two weeks to resume normal life activities.  This time, I could barely stand for even five minutes at the two week mark.  My abdomen was visibly bruised…I can only presume from a less than gentle delivery technique…and I was still pretty much useless for any kind of productivity.

Since then, I have improved…slowly.  Pain from the incision has become less frequent, but as I move around more, I am finding that my hip joints are extremely loose.  My balance is easily thrown off and after walking short distances my legs are shaky and sore.  This is new for me, and I guess it may be in part because I have been off my feet for so long, but I find it hard to not be discouraged.

I just wasn’t ready for this.  I was hoping to move quickly past the frustrations of this birth.  I was hoping to be able to look back on all of it and think it wasn’t really so bad.  I was hoping that I could possibly consider the thought of another baby in the future without even more anxiety about the now even greater probability of another cesarean.  I was hoping to find some silver lining to all of the disappointment.

…

I write this with a beautiful baby girl asleep in my arms.  And I would endure all of this a thousand times and more, if that were necessary to ensure the protection of her life.  Please don’t misread this as any resentment over the cost that a safe birth sometimes carries with it.  Mostly, it is just a weariness of soul and a wondering why and a fear of hoping.  That’s all.