My dd was born by emcs late on the wednesday night, after >20 hours in active labour, and we left very very late on the saturday night - they had been getting set up to dscharge us on the Saturday afternoon but then they couldn't find the doctor to sign me out, and then he was in theatre doing a section, and then another section, so 5pm turned into nearly midnight. They tried to get me to stay an extra night because of that but I had my heart set on going home...I hadn't thought about having to climb the stairs at home though...OUCH. So I was in for nearly 4 days in total, including labour.
After the c-section I was allowed back into my labour room, so DH could stay the night with us, and after that I went onto the ward for one night. I'm staff at the hospital I was in, so they found me a private room for the next 2 nights. It had a lot more room and had a private bathroom, which was nice and made me less reluctant to pee (hard to take a 10lb newborn to the loo with you when you can barely walk!) but it wasn't really much quieter, you could still hear all the noise and buzzers going and stuff, but I felt completely isolated, didn't have a clue what I was doing, and was massively struggling with breastfeeding...I'd push the buzzer for help and it'd take upwards of half an hour for someone to come, by which time dd was frantic.
Next time I'll be going for a vbac so hopefully we'll only be in one night max...I think I'd feel more relaxed at home, and my mum will probably be visiting to help look after dd, so won't need to do anything much but feed the new baby.