Four Star Accommodations

We were discharged from the hospital this past Sunday . It's standard for c-section deliveries to stay 3 days after day of surgery (we stayed 5 days if you include delivery day). Here's my advice to new mothers who find they have to deliver via c-section. Stay the full 3 days post delivery.

My ob/gyn doctors encouraged us to do this and for once I actually agreed with them (these were the c-section crazy doctors). Being new parents it was nice to have easy access to the lactation consultants and 24-hr. nurse care and assistance. Granted the food wasn't that great (it was magnificent the day after delivery then got progressively worse . . . clearly starvation makes any bland meal taste gourmet).

In the end, we had to stay an extra day because Mirabelle's weight dropped below the 10% birth weight mark. Apparently all newborns will lose a portion of their starting birth weights, but if they lose more than 10% some hospitals will not release them.

Since our insurance only covered me for a 3 day stay I was officially discharged on Saturday but stayed at the hospital under something called 'nesting'. This allowed us all to stay overnight together so I could feed the babies. The difference being I no longer received pain medication and vital sign monitoring from the nurses (Dave filled my pain med prescriptions and I was responsible for taking them).

We began supplementing Mirabelle and Finn (he wasn't letting Belle go down alone) with formula after each feeding. The supplementing stopped the weight drop but by Saturday evening their weight gain was minimal.

We spent the next 24 hours on a feeding frenzy of breast milk and formula (my milk started coming in on Saturday . . . can I get an 'Amen in the house!'). However, Mirabelle started turning Japanese (yellow in skin color) so the doctors checked her bilirubin levels for signs of jaundice. Thankfully neither her nor Finn had jaundice (phew!).

By 5 pm Sunday babies showed weight gain, albeit minimal, but enough for the pediatrician to okay a discharge for the babies. By 7:30 pm we were on our way home!