Zoe was spayed today

I had Zoe spayed today, so when I brought her home I put her in a large dog crate with food water and a litter box so she can recover comfortably. I normally put them in the bathroom after surgery but that is taken by Sky and her kittens right now. She was fine in there for the first few hours and then she decided she had enough and she wanted out. I figured under supervision she should be fine out. Wrong. She will run through the house and jump from the counters to the top of the cabinets and other such activity that I don't want her to be doing so soon after surgery. If I put her back in the crate she cries and will climb the bars a bit. I feel kinda bad but I have not even given her the pain meds she was sent home with yet in hopes she will settle down if she can feel. So do I keep her confined to the crate and hope she settles down after a bit, or do I let her free and do my best to control her and hope she settles down out here?

I never try to restrict kitties' activity after a spay. I figure that she knows what hurts (I only use pain meds for older, sedate females) and how to take care of herself. And none of mine have ever popped their stitches. . .except for one young lady who thought they were good to chew on . Although I admit that seeing her leaping onto cabinets would make me nervous, too! But I think the stress of being in the crate and the escape attempts would be worse for her recovery.

I have had mostly male cats, but the three females I've had I've always let do what they want and eat what they want after a spay.  I live in the UK so it's a flank spay, and none of them have had any problems.  They've all had subcutaneous stitches as well, so nothing for them to pick at.  They also didn't come home with any extra pain relief.

I let Ritz (female) out immediately after I got her home.  She was a bit unsteady on her feet and threw up once (which I expected).

She didn't do a lot of running around.  But.  She sleeps with me and I didn't want her jumping up onto the bed, so I slept on the floor and she slept next to me.

She will limit her own activity if she hurts, so I see no reason to let her out and do her thing.  Once the anesthesia and meds they gave her work out of her system and she's not so wobbly, she's fine to be out and about.

There was no wobbliness lol, she went strait into running full speed around the house. I managed to get her settled down and am just going to have to keep a close eye on her, she is fearless and always has been. She has fallen off the top of the cabinets before and was limping, but still proceded to go back up again, so I'm not so sure she would limit herself until she was in a significant amount of pain. I actually think she only settled down and was snuggling with me because she was starting to feel pain. She kept looking at me with her eyes half closed like she didn't feel too great like she did when she was sick.

I still have my recently socialized cat Lily to spay, the problem is she tends to hide and run from me on appointment days to the point I cant catch her and I have to cancel the appointment. They are going to let me catch her one morning more casually so she might not freak out, and just call and see if they have room. After she has surgery I want to definitely keep her confined so I can keep an eye on the incision.

I have had kitties react two ways to anesthesia.  They are either sleepy or they are hyper.  I'm not sure which is more disconcerting!

As for the other kitty, leave the carrier out so she won't suspect anything, then act like all is normal, scoop her up and put her in the carrier.