desperately seeking some advice/moral support...

[jenjingles]

hi this is going to be long sorry!! i am 36= 3 pregnant with my third baby and yesterday went for my consultant apointment because i am going to have to have a cs due to two previous ones, 1st one due to placenta praevia 2nd one had trial of scar and failed to progress, when i initially went to see consultant for dating scan had a long chat with him and he said likely hood of third cs high and went through pros and cons etc, he is a lovely dr and was very informative. I was booked in yesterday to have my cs two weeks today and was given the NICE guidelines and now i'm really confused and scared and don't know what the hell to do!! i have ds1 and dd1 and dh to consider if god forbid anything went wrong and i feel damned if i do and damned if i don't. Has anyone on here had three cs ,and how was it or alternatively had vbac 2cs and it was good bad or indifferent please can i have some advice on this , as i am really confused and have spent most of this morning in tears, thanks for reading sorry so long.

I'm sorry but I'm not quite certain what about the NICE guidelines has spooked you

Personally I wouldn't worry about having a 3rd c-section .. have had 2 already.

I think if you'd had a trial VBAC then you may well have no option other than c-section

I do know we have a member .. called zippy IIRC .. who's had 7 or 8 c-sections with no issues

hope someone will be along soon to help out

thankyou, feel a wee bit better hving got it off my chest

I've had 3 sections with no problems. All 3 were recommended (first breech, second crash section as abrupting, 3rd elective due to prev 2) and went fine.

The op took a bit longer getting through the previous scar tissue but the doc tidied up my scar for me.

Hope it goes well for you.

thanks sidge , how was your recovery following third was it any harder than the other two? any good advice??!

Hi jenjingles, I had a vaginal birth after two cesareans 20 months ago and it went very well and although I recovered well from my previous sections then vaginal birth was much much easier afterwards. The pros and cons of VBAC versus elective section are quite long and you might want to look at this website Although it is part of the homebirth website the information on it is relevant for those considering any kind of vbac and it also covers vbac after two cesareans. There's also a vbac yahoo group with lots of people on it who've had vaginal births after 2, 3 or even 4 previous cesareans for various reasons.

The risks to you and the baby with either option are low, so please be reassured that whatever you choose the chances are overwhelmingly high that you will both be fine. Is there anything specific about either option that is worrying you in particular?

Hi Jenjingles,

My recovery wasn't much different after the third section. Actually took longer to recover after section #2 but think that was due more to the GA than the op itself. I was up and about by about two (had baby at 0935) and catheter out the next morning (they only left it in overnight as I was peeing bucketloads - I was drinking so much water!!).

Wound healed quickly, breastfeeding went fine too. Only thing I found difficult was cuddling DD2 (aged 3 and disabled) as tummy sore for a couple of weeks, but DH was off work so could lift her.

I was pushing the double buggy and driving at 3 weeks.

Only thing of note was that during the op the doc said he wouldn't want me to have any more babies as my uterine wall was quite thin at the bottom near my scar. But that was our last so not a problem for me!!

Sorry, forgot re: good advice!!

Invest in a good V-pillow - invaluable for getting comfy in bed especially if breastfeeding as it lifts baby off tummy. Wear silky things to bed if poss as helps you roll over in bed - avoid doing 'sit ups' to get out of bed, better to roll.

Arnica is good for bruising (either tablets or cream) and protein, vit C and zinc aid healing.

If you have other kids at home might need to let standards slip slightly until all back to normal - DD2 had picnic lunches on the floor for a while as I couldn't lift her into her highchair! I also put a stool next to the bath so I could sit there when bathing the girls as kneeling on the floor hurt my tum.

Get your shopping delivered if you don't already, much easier than slogging round the supermarket. And pushing a trolley HURTS post section!

And get visitors to make their own cups of tea (and yours too of course) - stay in your nightie for a while in the day if you have the sort of visitors that think a section is no big deal and you should be back to normal within 48 hrs of having a baby

thank you all for the advice you have made me feel so much better , will try and be positive about everything, and i,ll let you know how it all goes. xx