[Kitsa]

I've given birth both ways. I would call it more painful than a giant dump. The most accurate way I've found to describe contractions is that it's a bit like diarrhea cramps, only the diarrhea is made of broken glass. Most of the rest is a burn-y, tear-y sensation, at least the usual way.

With a C-section you get a spinal injection, which is painful and weird and very wrong-feeling, then you slowly lose sensation from about the ribcage down. But you don't lose all sensation. You can feel pressure and touch and you can move your feet, and that leads to a bad few moments worrying about what exactly you're going to feel when they slice open your gut. They say that they pinch you hard first to make sure you're numb "enough".

For me, it felt very much like the last scene of Braveheart. I felt like my gut was slit wide open and pulled apart by both sides, and someone was in there up to their elbows yanking stuff out. It wasn't really numb and it wasn't really painful, but it did feel like maybe you're supposed to die at the end of this or something. And it is weird as hell having major abdominal surgery while you're 100% awake, listening to stuff getting suctioned out of you and watching doctors standing over you joking with each other.

As soon as the spinal wears off, though, the hell begins. And my incision is about 10 inches long, or looks to be that long (no ruler handy). It may be an increasingly common way to have a baby but it's sure as hell not an easy or fun one.