Bath....three times daily as directed

Before Jack was born I was confident....probably too confident.  Even though Lily was one of those babies that needed to be held pretty much every wakeful moment, I was sure little Jack was going to lay on the floor and coo while I enjoyed quality time with my daughter.  My over-confidence also led me to believe that I was going to be released as soon as possible following delivery and we would all live happily ever after.  The rule at the hospital is that you have to stay until the day after you deliver.  This means that if you deliver two minutes before midnight you could be eligible for release within twelve hours, but if you deliver after midnight you have to stay until the next calendar day.  Jack was born at 12:32 am so we had to stay longer.  My dear 6'9" husband had to sleep on a little piece of foam for two nights and Lily was worried about us the whole time.  So when the doctor asked me if I needed anything, I said I wanted to be discharged as soon as possible.  I thought it was a good idea at the time.  I was sent home with the regular information including sitting in the bath tub three times a day...what new mom really has time for that anyway?
That night I realized I was peeing blood...not a little but a lot of blood.  I called the healthy and home nurse and she said I had to go into emergency right away.  It was midnight and I had to haul my newborn to emergency in -30 degree weather and sit in the H1N1 filled waiting room.  I was not happy about this or the possibility that I was going to have to have my first public breastfeeding experience there.  They used a technique called "waiting room medicine" and the triage nurse gave me a urine sample cup to take to the public washroom.  The people in there actually gasped when I walked through the waiting room with my blood red urine sample...my confidence was wavering.  Oh yeah...and this was day 3 post-partum...if you don't know what that means, stay tuned.  I will blog about that next time.  Anyway, the healthy and home nurse thought that I had torn my urethra during delivery but fortunately it was just a urinary tract infection so I headed home with my prescription.
The next day we had a visit from the nurse who took Jack's blood because he appeared a little yellow...okay he was really yellow but I didn't notice because I was in awe of my perfect beautiful newborn...oh and he was great at sleeping and didn't need to eat very often.  The perfect baby except that he was actually jaundice and needed to return to the hospital to be admitted.   I want to take a moment to think about parents of really sick kids because seeing Jack in the hospital for even that short time was really hard.  By the time he was admitted and assessed he was becoming unresponsive.  They wanted to get an IV in as soon as possible.  They asked me to leave the room because babies really cry when they poke them.  A half hour later I walked back in wondering why they hadn't done it yet.  He hadn't cried at all even though they poked him thirteen times.  The PICU nurse finally got the IV in and he was placed on light therapy.  I was encouraged to pump if I wanted and to give what I pumped plus formula but not to actually breastfeed because they were monitoring how much he was taking. 
My breast milk hadn't yet come in and all I was getting was a few precious drops of colostrum.  My confidence continued to waver.  They brought me a chair/cot to sleep on.  There was no where to take these precious baths that they had spoken so fondly of on the maternity ward.  I had to leave my baby alone to pump and I had to go to a friend's house to shower.  (The Saskatoon Children's Hospital Foundation radiothon is on as I type.  It is going to have better accomodations for parent's with sick kids.  I had no idea how bad we needed this until we stayed in pediatrics...what a dump!!)
Over the next six weeks I fought with my breastmilk and my urinary tract infection.  I took three different rounds of antibiotics and a handful of pills for breast milk production.  My confidence had vanished and I thought that I was wrong in assuming I could handle any of it. 
From there we started to see improvements.  I quit breastfeeding...I completely dried up in one day although I did get to feel the rock hard porn star boobs that everyone talks about for one night.  You are not supposed to dry up that quickly, so obviously something wasn't quite right.  And I started an antidepressant and finally kicked the infection. 
I guess things don't always go as planned...but it all ended with a "and they all lived happily ever after."  I think it all happened just because I didn't get those baths....three times a day as directed.