I had an elective c-section 13 weeks ago. I lost 2 litres of blood (and I'm tiny so it was a high % volume) as placenta was both anterior and a previa so they had to open me right up and really pull the wound open to get hands in for compression to stop the bleeding. I had quite extensive bruising up to my ribs as a result of that.
Despite all this it was a wonderful experience, I felt I had so much control during the procedure, I was up within 6 hours, needed no pain relief post surgery and it's healing amazingly well. My wound is so neat and I've been lucky with no overhang or tightness across the wound despite being hip to hip. After the 6 hours it took for the spinal to wear off I was moving, picking up baby, changing and breast feeding baby as well as looking after myself. After a week I was driving (insurance company said fine), pushing pram (didn't try before then), mucking out horses and walking the dog.
My biggest hindrance has been recovering from such a loss of blood when I was already severely anaemic. I would have liked to be like Gayle and walked and walked and walked, but I just didn't have the fuel in the tank to do that. Still got some baby weight to loose (just under 2 stone left), but being hypothyroid since the birth hasn't helped that in the slightest!
