I had a planned section with my first and only child - and it was the best birth experience I could have hoped for personally. Specific reasons meant that vaginal delivery was unlikely to be a success for me, would almost certainly have been disastrous for me and probably for baby too, so planning the section was the best option for us.
The theatre team were incredible, it was like I was on a factory production line but not in a bad way, if you know what I mean - everything was smooth and practised and it all just worked. I’d been able to plan the pieces of music I wanted, take my nice little bluetooth speaker in to theatre with us. My birth partner was great, the anaesthetist was terrific, and my lovely midwife was the one who catheterised me for the procedure, so it was all quite nice and familiar and friendly. We had skin-to-skin contact almost straight away, and I was able to put babe to the breast and snuggle while I was being sewn up. It did feel a bit like someone rummaging in a bag, as PP said, but I didn’t care much about that!
Recovery was straightforward enough, major abdominal surgery notwithstanding, but I was in fairly good physical condition beforehand so do accept that my outcomes would likely have been different if I hadn’t been. Definitely keep up with pain meds, as you don’t want to end up in pain and grumpy and unable to move around.
I’d also suggest preparing for your at-home recovery by arranging everything possible to avoid having to bend too much in the early weeks. Although you do want to be moving, you don’t want to put too much strain through your healing wound. For me that meant buying a couple of folding bar stools, one for the kitchen so I could do my own cups of tea, food prep etc. without standing too long, and one for the bedroom for drying hair etc. as I don’t have a dressing table with a stool. We bought a baby bath with its own stand, and also chose a pushchair based on how high up the baby could be in it so I didn’t have to simultaneously bend much while lifting baby. (I had that advice from a work friend who’d had 3 sections in 5 years, and was really grateful to her because it made the first few weeks so much easier.)
Also you’ll want to make sure you get enough protein and micronutrients (particularly vitamin c and zinc) to support good quality wound healing. If you breastfeed, baby will be taking a lot from you through that, so it might be worth supplementing the micronutrients.
And once your scar has healed enough, you’ll definitely want to massage it. Medical staff tell you to massage your scar, but nobody explained to me why it’s important to bother with the massage. Turns out the reason is to keep the scar tissue flexible and prevent adhesions through the layers, which might result in pain or even gynaecological issues. If I’d known that, I would have started massage earlier than 8 months post-op … !
If a planned section is on the table then it’s because it’s the best choice for you, so embrace it! It can be an absolutely lovely experience too. Good luck with it all.