Birth Story:
Woke up at 5am on Friday and spent an hour panicking about lack of movement, to the point where we got the doppler out 
. Got to the hospital at 7.45am, after brief pit stop at McDs to feed DH - just as well we did, as things turned out! Allocated a private room (score!) in the ante-natal ward, had brief check (hb, bp etc) and given two hospital gowns to put on, one forwards and one backwards for modesty. Weirdly, had to keep my own shoes on to walk down to the labour ward and theatre. In the labour ward, DH taken away to put scrubs on, I signed consent form for spinal and we went into the operating theatre at 9am. Heaps of ppl milling around looking official. Anaesthetist put canula in my hand and attached saline solution, BP cuff went on other arm and they got me to lean forward over a pillow and painted my back with iodine ready for the local anaesthetic before the spinal. At this point, someone sticks their head in and says 'hold it, there's a prolapse coming down'. Everyone freezes, and 2 minutes later it's confirmed and we had to get out of there pronto. Less than 3 minutes later they would have had the spinal in and we would have been unstoppable.
We were sent to wait in a delivery room, and after about half an hour the consultant came in, apologised for the delay and said we should be good to go as soon as the theatre was cleaned up. Then 5 minutes later the MW came back and said another emergency had come in. So we kicked our heels, with me getting v hungry and thirsty and hot and both of us getting more nervous and tense by the minute.
We went back into the operating theatre at 12, and this time there was much less chit-chat - they got the spinal in as fast as they could just in case we got interrupted again. The local anaesthetic didn't hurt very much - I'd heard bad stories but it was nothing. They had to flush out the canula because it had got a bit clogged during all the waiting and that was painful. The spinal itself went in and they got me to lie down flat and then tilted the bed slightly sideways. The anaesthetist sprayed me with something icy cold, on the arm as a test, and then worked her way up my tummy and I could feel that something was spraying on me but I couldn't feel hot or cold until she got to my chest, at which point it suddenly went icy. Then she asked what she was doing to my tummy, and it felt like she was poking it, but she said no, she had her fingernails dug right in. She asked DH to look and verify it (interesting piece of patient psychology there!) and explained that although I would feel tugging and pressure, I wouldn't feel any pain. And that's pretty much exactly what happened. I could feel movement, but nothing hurt.
They got started and Bean was born very quickly - within 5 minutes, at 12.23. The consultant asked DH to stand up so he could see her being born, and she was lifted out and she cried as they lifted her. I got a quick glimpse and then the MW and DH took her off to the next room to be weighed and dried. She started really howling in there - I could hear her crying and DH said it was the toweling down that she didn't like. Then they brought her back through and put her on my chest while they finished sewing me up. This didn't take very long and before I knew it, the consultant was saying she'd had to do a slight V shape but everything had gone smoothly and there had been no problems. I was through in the recovery room by 12.40, and Bean snuggled on my chest and snuffled a bit but didn't really try to feed. DH started texting everyone and after maybe 45 minutes they wheeled me back upstairs to my room and we settled in.
She is so tiny and perfect and beautiful! 6lb 5 seems to be pretty small - she fits the Tiny Baby stuff from Mothercare perfectly even though that's for babies of 5lbs. She took an hour or so after birth to really start looking for food, although I tried feeding her a few times and gradually she got the message. Over the past 3 days her bite has got much stronger and she's started feeding more intensely. We were let out on Sunday afternoon and she's been feeding pretty well and has pooped more than I was expecting, so I think that's good. The only thing is that she has a slight heart murmur, but this is apparently really common and hopefully it will be gone by her 6 week check. She's been referred to the children's hospital for a kidney follow-up, but the first thing she did was pee on the MW while she was being weighed, so they don't seem concerned. She seems to be peeing plenty.
Pain-wise after the CS, it took about 6 hours before my feet felt normal again, so no pain all that time. I don't think I really felt any pain except twinges for the first 24 hours. The first night was pretty grim because I was so hot - I still had the catheter in and couldn't move much, they wouldn't let me have the window open and everything in the bed seemed to be made of plastic and sticking to me (catheter tube, incontinence pad thing, horrible plastic pillows). I was running with sweat and I was scared I was overheating Bean, who I kept in the bed with me most of the night because I couldn't get her out of her cot on my own. The catheter came out the next morning and then they got me up and in the shower not long after that. Getting up twinged, but no more than that, really. It feels hot, like a burn, when it hurts. They had me peel the dressing off in the shower and then DH helped me get dressed in a clean nightie and pants and after that I was much more comfortable. I've now had a look at the scar with a mirror and it's very thin. I think it'll be very discreet. My tummy feels a bit numb between scar and belly button, but hopefully that'll wear off eventually. I'm pretty mobile today, although to be fair I haven't tried to do much. It hurts a bit pulling myself into a vertical sitting position but not badly. I'm on paracetamol and dicloflex, with dihydracodeine if I think I need it, and although I took a dihydracodeine today that was mainly as a preventative measure before I attempted getting in the bath. It didn't sting in the bath either, which I had been worried about. Oh, I'll tell you what hurt - wind! On Sunday I had really bad stomach cramps, like period pain and as if someone had tied a string round my middle and pulled tight. I didn't know what it was - thought it might be afterpains, but it was wind. I had been taking peppermint oil capsules, but either they didn't work or else it would have been much worse without them.
Tomorrow we're going to try a brief walk, and it's also DD1's birthday so we'll be taking Maia down to the cemetery. Not sure how the Day 3/4 baby blues are going to cope with that, but hopefully it won't be too bad. I got pretty upset and cried last night because the dog is totally freaked out by Bean - I sat on the sofa and started feeding her and she was crying, and the dog jumped up next to me and and got hold of the foot of her babygro in his teeth. He was smacked and hustled back down again, but started whining and fretting whenever she made a sound and staring at her intently and it was quite scary. I suggested putting his cage in the bedroom because he usually sleeps on the bed and I didn't want him to feel too marginalised in case it made things worse. Last night he whined and fretted whenever she cried, but DH spent lots of time introducing him to her calmly today and basically setting boundaries. I wouldn't dare leave him in the room with her unsupervised, but things have progressed to the point where it's definitely fear, not aggression - he shakes, whimpers and howls when she cries. Luckily DH has 4 weeks at home and we can spend plenty of time working on it. He's a rescue dog and we don't know if he's lost a home when a new baby arrived in the past - we know he's good with older kids (ie, ages 1 and up), so this took us by surprise.
This is a mammoth post and I should have been sleeping! Bean has started to stir again so I'd better go and try feeding before I aim for some sleep.