So, being pregnant with your husband as a recruiter – sucks! Granted the weekends he has off are great as that is the time my husband usually does stuff like make dinner, catch up on the things that I can’t really do around the house because they require heavy lifting, and vaccumms the whole house – stairs included. The part that sucks is that he doesn’t have every weekend off and always tries to make the most of his weekends relaxing – so trying to get him to go to Babies R Us is quite a feat as he would rather be doing anything else BUT going to Babies R Us and spending a few hours there.
Anyways, I am quickly approaching the third trimester – or third period, as my sports-loving husband refers to it as (I think he is able to relate to the pregnancy by comparing aspects of it to the sporting world). I cannot believe how fast time seems to be flying by! One of the things I have done recently, that you may have to do if delivering off-post, is having my OBGYN call Tricare and let them know the hospital I would be delivering at so that Tricare could pre-authorize the hospital. Seriously, the sooner you get this done the better – as each hospital has different policies and procedures regarding pre-admission and you want to make sure all your insurance information is DONE before your first contraction. If you should have the baby unexpectedly – and have to go to the nearest ER – your delivery will be covered as that qualifies as an emergency – but if you are trying to plan things out as much as possible to be prepared – make sure to get your hospital pre-authorized.
I am still looking into what Tricare will pay for and what kinds of Army programs are out there to help with the various costs that we often don’t realize are out there because we’re soo accustomed to the convience of a military post – like free birthing classes and Daddy bootcamp. Yep, those classes are typically NOT free off post. The cost can range from $40 – $150 for a couple class. I did find a really cool program that helps military spouses with deployed husbands – Operation Special Delivery. It’s a program that provides doulas to spouses with deployed husbands to help with their birth. It’s a great idea – I just wish they could offer something like that for recruiting spouses – yes – our husband will probably be at the birth – but sometimes that pesky schedule gets in the way and you just can’t prepare the way you would if your husband wasn’t bound by the recruiting schedule/calendar! Not to mention – your husbands job is stressful enough and then add in the stress you’re feeling and the overwhelming wave that envelopes you when you have that baby – any help would be appreciated. Also, for the moms considering breastfeeding – a lot of these hospitals offer in-house breast feeding support – but once you leave that hospital – you have to pay for it, and it’s not cheap, nor is it covered by tricare. If you were at a military post that has a L&D ward – chances are very good that there is a lactation consultant you could use for FREE!
Another thing I have learned is to call whoever you have to to get a copy of that recruiting calendar – it will help you plan, plan, and then make an emergency plan in case plan A and B get blown out of the water. Truthfully, I have no idea what to do if I go into labor early and my husband is at MEPS and because of L.A. traffic can’t get home to me for 2-4 hours. My PLAN is to either call the station and pray that someone is there that could maybe drive me to the hospital OR call 9-1-1 and then explain the $10,000.00 ambulance bill to Tricare after the baby comes. I would call another spouse, but the nearest spouse I know is just as pregnant as I am – and knowing my luck she would go into labor from the stress of the situation and then we would both be S.O.L. Of course, that situation would make a hilarious story later on after the baby was here – but it would seriously suck in the mean time.So, hopefully Plan A will work and the baby will come when my doctor and I want her to come and my husband will either have an office day or be within 10minutes of the house! LOL!
Well, I think that’s it for now. If you want to check out Operation Special Delivery, in case you have a friend whose husband is deployed – the website is: www.operationspecialdelivery.com
Filed under: Stuff
I love your blog! It has a lot that I have in common! I was wanting to let you know of the new company we just started up and I am going to ask you to visit the website and let me know what you think!!!
Hi I feel your pain. I was 30 weeks pregnant when my husband and I moved to Alabama in June which sucks because it is HOT here! I had to do most of the unpacking myself because he was working all the time. We are now down to 1 year and 3 months left….woohoo!!! We pray that we don’t get extended I think my husband would be pretty upset if that happened. I just want to tell you I enjoy your blog and good luck on everything. We are lucky because we live really close to the MEPS so I didn’t have to worry about him not getting back home if i went in to labor so I will keep my fingers crossed that everything goes well.
I have been really enjoying reading your blog. It has helped me tremendously with my preparation of my own birth which will be in August. This is our fourth baby though I am more nervous about it than even the ones where he was deployed…go figure!! My husband gets home late and I bookmark things I want to read to him from here….opens up alot of conversations between us and I thank you for that!!!
I know this is probably too late, but an general help for any prego wifey.
We are about to go to recruiting and we are in a very remote location right now with no MTF so we are on prime remote Tricare. After I had my 1st about 90 days we started getting medical bills. I read through all the maternity info tricare gave us and never once read that if you do not call tricare and request your new child be put on prime remote they default to regular tricare and you have cost shares since you didnt see a pedi at an MTF (which there isnt one in the state we are in anyways) but it just peeved me that they did that, now we are stuck paying the bills for all his pedi trips during those few months. So beware, if you have babies call tricare and make sure they are on the right insurance because for awhile they defualt under you, but then after a few months they dont! dont pay bills like we have to!! i’m sooooo irratated!!!