Realisticly how many phone card minutes do we need?

[flagger]

I know most hospitals do not allow the use of cell phones in the rooms because of the possible interference with telemtry, so I was looking at AT&T phone cards at Sam's today.

This particular Sam's sell them in increments of 250, 600 and 1250 minutes. I know we could always use the phone cards from home, but don't really want to buy more than we need. I was thinking 250 was enough for calling down the "phone list". Your thoughts?

The maternity center by the house has rooms with patios and if we got lucky we might get one of those, and I would think cell phones would be ok from there.

[COElizabeth]

A patio? Nice!!! We brought a phone card and didn't use a whole lot of time even though I was in the hospital for 60 hours after birth. After the initial calls people had our room number and could call us, though to be honest most of the people who would call were actually visiting in the hospital, so their calls were quick, "I'm on my way over!" Unless you are anticipating several particularly long calls I would go with the 250.

Elizabeth
Mom to James
9-20-02

[flagger]

Yeah a patio. My neighbor who delivered there last July mentioned that little tidbit the other day. She said to ask for one and if they are not full (or too many babies being born at that time) we might get one. :)

[mamahill]

You DEFINITELY won't need more than 250 minutes (unless you have 300 people to call). Most of the people we called weren't even home (so anti-climactic) so we just left messages with the hospital phone number if they wanted to call. Also, we got ours from Costco and it's an MCI card (3.5 cents/minute) that is rechargeable. There are no hidden fees, you just charge it to whatever and it ticks of 3.5 cents each minute. We ended up getting rid of long distance in favor of this. And a patio? Hoo-eee. Nice!

[LucyG]

We had a 300 minute AT&T card from Sam's, and it was more than enough. The extra minutes were nice, though, once we were home and settled. After a few days, when our heads were back above water, there were people we wanted to talk to for telling more than "It's a girl and she's great!" Since the card was much cheaper than our long distance service, I used it for those calls. Invariably, they were long ones, and I could call without guilt since the minutes were so cheap. We've ended up using the cards (they're renewable) instead of our long distance, as they are cheaper.

[Rachels]

I agree-- 250 is enough. We were both too tired after I gave birth for long phone calls, and there were too many people on our list who needed calling for us to spend an hour with each. It took me a few weeks to catch up on my calls. I could never have done all of that within the first day or two of Abigail's life.

-Rachel
Mom to Abigail Rose
5/18/02

[C99]

We were allowed to use our cell phones everywhere but the NICU.

[candybomiller]

This is really embarassing, but I couldn't figure out how to use the hospital phone, so we didn't call anyone! My family who couldn't make it over for the birth were SO mad. I definitely would NOT recommed this method to anyone. I was just way too embarassed to ask the nurses how to use the phone. :)

Candy
Mom to Matt, 5/22/02

P.S. Best of luck on getting a patio room. Sounds very nice, though definitely more for visitors than the patient because I doubt she's going to want to do much moving at all. :) Does it have a nice view? My room (once I finally got one with a window) had a view of a brick wall. That was nice.

[Thatchermom]

250 should be fine, but Sam's Club cards are renewable over the phone (directions on the back) in case you end up needing more in an extreme situation like we did. DS was born on the evening of Sept. 10, and his Grampy's plane was grounded partway there the next morning on 9-11. Just one of the many interesting facets of a nearly 9-11 birth...

[mharling]

Also check into onesuite.com. I just signed up for this and this is what we will use from the hospital. It is similar to a calling card in that you dial an 800 #, enter a pin and then the number you're calling. I think we're paying 2.9 cents a minute.

You sign up on their website and they issue a pin. You call 'refill' at any time. The one thing to be aware of is that minutes do expire (I believe after 6 months), so you don't want to go overboard at first.

This is cheaper than our long distance service, so I do end up using it at home as well (particulary during business hours). I certainly wouldn't worry about having minutes left over after you leave the hospital.

Mary
EDD 4/5/03

[emilyf]

We bought a card, but if I remember correctly our cell phone worked once I was moved to my regular room. I don't think it was working in the delivery room, but it was the middle of the night so we weren't making any calls from there anyway!
Emily
mom of Charlie born 11/02