@markrhoward I have 2 that are 2 years and 2 months apart so a little more than you are saying, but here are my thoughts:
1) this part was hard. I wouldn’t have been able to handle it without my nanny and my husband. I’m not going to lie I broke the weight restriction a few times after the first couple of weeks.
2) I have a full time nanny on weekdays, was on mat leave and my husband is active in childcare so this wasn’t as much of an issue for me, but the way we survived weekends/when our nanny wasn’t here and there were 10000 things to do for baby girl was screen time - some people are very opposed but it’s a few months and whatever. He was really into brain candy tv at this time and I swear he learned to love math during this time. He now loves a show called number blocks and is a 4 year old math beast who counts to himself in his free time. Basically it all worked out for the best and we all survived. He loves and is obsessed with his sister and never has resented her and I honestly think a lot of it has to do with the fact that he didn’t even realize she was getting so much extra attention because he was so busy watching brain candy tv happily.
3) N/A for me. My son was like 1.5 years when I got pregnant. My doctor was ok with it. I finally had full feeling back in my stomach and all of that
4) No because my older child sleeps like a rock and because our master is on the main floor and my sons room is upstairs so he couldn’t hear her in the early days. We transitioned her upstairs at like 3-4 months and she occasionally woke him but not that much. My house has big bedrooms though.
I would probably consider having another conversation with your doctor closer to when you want to start trying and not do it if they haven’t cleared you (at least without a reasonable second opinion who disagrees). It’s not worth the risks if they don’t - they are the experts. My second child had so many more long term impacts on my body than my first even without extra risks. I would also add that I think I recovered much faster from my second c section and while the pregnancy was harder I don’t think it relates to the first at all (I had very bad nausea the whole pregnancy until the baby left my body). The damage to my body from the second baby also doesn’t relate to it being a second c section.
