When gas leaks are good things

Or, alternately, what I didn't know about c-sections going into the surgery.

Last night, while feeding little Alex (because really, if I'm not feeding her, I'm pumping or trying to sleep), we finally connected our video camera to the big screen tv in my Dad's man-cave to view the footage taken of the delivery. Wow. Powerful stuff...and surreal too. Something we'll keep within the family, likely, but it also called to mind the first 72 or so hours after the delivery (or shall we just call a spade a spade and say surgery?)

You see, no one told me that abdominal surgery can often be accompanied by intense gastro-intestinal distress. No one said "you will have trouble with gas and be unable to poop, causing potentially mind-alteringly alarmingly painful cramps, so horridly powerful that they spread up your back, through your entire torso and even up to your shoulders where, ultimately, you won't be able to even lift your arms for the shooting pain."

Yeah... No one told me about that.

Flashback to 1992. I was playing varsity waterpolo at Carleton University. What does this have to do with that? Well...I was notorious for gulping water and air during games, and then, after a night on the town with teammates drinking gas-inducing beer, holding onto my farts, causing intense gas-pains so bad that by night's end, I would curl up in a fetal ball on my bed and cry, waiting for the air to move through my system and come out the appropriate end.

So. It stands to reason that, Uh, the after-delivery experience for me was characterized not only by issues learning to breastfeeding, stress worrying about a sick baby in CHEO, but also an indescribable pain from built-up gas emissions that only started to clear out a bit the day of my discharge from the hospital. Not fun, my friends, not fun.

Still, worth it, of course, but I don't think I will look back on the first few days as an amazing time. Just necessary to get to the real fun.

You will be happy to know that mommy is now filling the atmosphere without hesitation with gaseous outputs. All is good.