| YO, THIS IS A SPONSORED POST. |
“This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of 1 Natural Way, a TRICARE breast pump provider. All opinions are entirely my own.”
Disclaimer- I was given monetary compensation or a free copy/sample of the product to review and share my experience. All opinions are my own and not influenced in any way.
I was 34 weeks pregnant with our youngest child the last time I saw my husband before she was born. At the time of his deployment, my two children and I watched as Daddy stepped onto a white bus with the end destination of Afghanistan. It was pouring that day; a rarity in Hawaii. All I remember after he got on the bus was a random soldier grabbing my loose child up into his arms and helping me to the car as
I pushed the youngest in the stroller through puddles of everyone’s tears.
But tonight, six years later; we are faced with a similar situation; another deployment. At least this time I am not knocked up and my three children are considerably older. I think back to the day I brought our youngest home from the hospital alone because daddy was still deployed.
There was no warm homecoming for us.
Instead, I was dropped off at my door (just baby and me) and within a few minutes my neighbor was knocking to deliver my other two tiny humans; ages two and four at the time. I sat on the couch envisioning this happy hallmark moment of having my family together. Happy was definitely not the word I will use to describe the moment we became a family of 5-1; I will not forget it. It was about 5PM in the evening and dinner time. My milk had not come in yet and even though I had never successfully breastfeed any of my children; I was determined to breastfeed her.
Did you know that as a recipient of Tricare insurance (military spouses this can mean you!); you can qualify for a high quality breast pump and accessories at no cost (yes, that means name brands like Medela and Spectra. Happy dance!).
I wish I had that; the reassurance that even if she couldn’t or wouldn’t nurse or latch, I still could pump and provide her with a gift that will last a lifetime. However, at that day in age (geesh that makes me sound old) Tricare didn’t provide such a incredible gift to expectant moms. And if they did, no on told me. So I am telling you (again!)-
If you have Tricare insurance you can qualify for a qualityinsurance breast pumpand accessories like storage bags and even postpartum recovery support wear.
Seriously folks, I don’t know how else to stress the fact that you can get free equipment for breastfeeding to help you and your child achieve something not every mother can and lots of mothers want; the ability to breastfeed their child. Luckily,1 Natural Way is the premiere resource for the highest quality breastfeeding pumps and supplies. I’m talking like 5 gold stars on a good behavior chart. Remember those in school? I kinda do; I always talked to much to get any.
Nevertheless, If I had aTricare breast pumpmaybe that first week at home would have gone a lot differently.
Night one resembled that of a blitz attack on my body and mind. With no milk yet, my little one attacked my breast about every 20 minutes. But about every 15 minutes one or both of my toddlers were at my side yelling for something. Because guess what- they both have Autism and didn’t talk. So I played the guessing game with three children. Trying to figure out what their next attack would be. A snack? Playtime? Did they want to stick legos up their noses? Pretty much all of those all the time. The worst part of all was trying to make everyone happy; because I just couldn’t do that alone. So I put my big girl panties on and started to figure out how to do it all alone. No one was going to come save me. I had children to keep alive.
Curling up into a ball of pity wasn’t going to work. The kids would still find me.
First it started with how do I breastfeed this kid? I had never been successful before with it. Why in the hell did I decide to do it now? I’ll blame it on the pregnancy hormones. There was no way in my right mind I would have decided that. Why add more to my already full plate? So, yea, hormones. That sounds like a good excuse. However, even with the crazy pregnancy hormones, no husband and three screaming kids I know I would have been able to take less than five minutes to apply for my Tricare breast pump. So stickin’ simple! It only takes 5 easy steps:
- # 1 – Fill out our insurance information form found on this site –> Click here to apply for your freeTricare breast pumpyo!
- # 2 – Choices? You get choices! Select a breast pump model.
- # 3 – You ain’t got time for this –> so 1 Natural Way has a convenient monthly breastfeeding accessory program. Enroll here.
- # 4 – Give 1 Natural Way your prescription. Don’t have one? Fill out your doctor information and they will contact them for you.
- # 5 – Lay back and kick your feet up. HAHA! Like you have time for that. So do what needs to be done while you wait for your order to ship straight to you.
By the end of the deployment, I cried; a lot. I had no husband to help me get dinner ready, no husband to ask how to help our children and no husband to hold me as all the pregnancy hormone flooded out. My kids didn’t get it. The baby didn’t get it. Who was I crying to? I realize in that moment it was all up to me. During that year, I grew a lot. It honestly was one of the best years of my life. I realized how much I could do alone. One of the biggest achievements was realizing this-
There were military wives who came before me who had to do this and survived. There will be military wives after me that will walk in my shoes; so it is important to show those wives it can be done.
However, I guess most importantly was that I kept all three kiddos alive and exclusively breastfeed our youngest for 14 months. Bonus!