Expectant Mama Advice: The Breast Pump Insurance Thing

What is a modern day Mama Essential that all women pretty much HAVE to have? It doesn't matter if you are a SAHM (like me) or if you are headed back to work after 6 or 12 weeks. You pretty much gotta have one of these bad boys.

A Breast Pump.

I was well aware that this was something I would have to have. I've heard my Mom talk about how much she used hers, and that was 26 years ago! I've heard my sister in law tell hilarious stories of pumping while driving because she forgot to earlier in the morning and the strange looks she was getting through the car window. I knew I had to have one, I knew I needed one, especially with planning and hoping to breast feed. But with this being my first baby, I had no idea how to go about getting one.

When it came time to register for our baby showers, I stood in the pumping section of Babies R Us and nearly had a melt down. $300+ for a pump. I chose to put a manual pump on my registry and hoped that I would figure out the always quoted "Insurance will pay for it," thing by the time baby arrived.


Fortunately I have a good friend that has given me all kinds of "Baby Advice" over the past 9 months. She is a Mom of 4 now and without her chiming in on this subject I would probably still be hoping to get by with that manual pump -- thank God I didn't get it.


So many women are asking "I need an affordable breast pump. How do I get a breast pump?" A friend from childhood and his wife recently had their first child and while our Mom's were comparing Grandma Notes his Mom mentioned her daughter in law had paid well over $400 out of pocket for her pump. My Mom said her jaw nearly hit the floor. She explained to her the ease with which I came by mine and the other lady said she had no idea it was that easy.... So I'd like to try to explain it to you now, so you can help someone, or yourself, in the future.

So here's the deal. Insurance will pay 100% for a breast pump. It is a medical necessity for new Mom's. Doesn't matter is you are EBF or PBF or whatever. You've got to have one. Period.

I was sitting at home one day, fussing in my head over how I was going to afford another huge chunk being ripped from our bank account to pay for this pump when I got a text message from the above mentioned Mom of 4.


HAVE YOU GOT YOUR PUMP YET? she asked me.

NO. I CAN'T AFFORD IT. I said, being totally honest.

INS WILL PAY. She said. I'd heard that schtick my whole pregnancy. My doctor had not mentioned word one about it, and at this point my appointments were so few and far between I would forget to ask every time.

THAT'S WHAT I KEEP HEARING, BUT IDK HOW TO GO ABOUT FILING TO GET ONE.

IT'S EASY. She said and she sent me a link and told me how to do it.


DISCLAIMER: This is the company that I used. I am not being sponsered, coerced or paid any amount of money or being compencated in any way to mention them. They have no idea I am even writing this review. I am simply wishing to share this with other Moms-To-Be so that no one has to PAY for a Breast Pump out of pocket every again.

• The webstie is www.edgepark.com. They are a medical supply company. 
• When you arrive at the main page, type "Breast Pump" in the search bar. 
• There is a bright blue button that says "ORDER NOW." Clicky clicky.
• A new page will open up. This is the breast pump eligibility form. It is going to ask you to fill in a little information - your state and your insurance provider. Once you click the "DETERMINE YOUR COVERAGE" button a new page will pop up.
• And BOOM! Pick your pump. I chose the Medela pump. It was first on the list and the only pump out of all that was listed that I recognized the name of. I highly suggest you choose this one - photo below.
• Once you've clicked on the pump you want, scroll down to the bottom of the page and fill out the two boxes, your estimated delivery date and your email.
• Continue on with any information it asks until the process is complete. (Be sure to have your insurance card handy, just in case you need it.)

Medela Breast Pump

I received a confirmation email immediately after the order was placed. I was never asked for a thin red penny. It say takes 7 - 10 business days to process, ship and receive the order, so be patient, it may take a little longer. For my Mom of 4 friend she got hers 2 days before I got mine, and we ordered on the same day within minutes of each other. But don't worry, in your confirmation email you get a tracking number.

If there is a hiccup along the way EdgePark will contact you. If there isn't, they won't. They do everything.

One thing you will notice about this pump is that is does not include a tote bag. The thing with that is the tote bag IS NOT covered by insurance, the pump, however, is. Personally I'm not gonna be toting my pump here, there and yonder. I have a basket with all of my breastfeeding and pumping essentials sitting right next to the chair in my daughter's nursery and that's where it stays, unless I want to move it to the living room or our bedroom, in which case it's all contained in the basket anyway. But if you are someone that will have to pump on the go, say at work, you can always buy a cute tote bag, that way you aren't carrying around an obvious black breast pump bag. The money you are saving from not having to pay for the pump will buy 100 totes. 

When your pump arrives in the mail, you will have an invoice, but it's not a bill. I was FLOORED to see that that itty bitty little pump cost $450! I immediately called my friend and thanked her for saving me basically $500! My husband was blown away and so thankful someone had "shown us the way."

If you know someone expecting a baby and flipping out over the cost of a breast pump, or searching for a used one high and low, please show them this post. Paying even $10 is unnecessary when you can get it for free! I hope this helps someone out there! 

Babies R Us Registry Experience - Pre Shower Edition

Having a baby is so exciting, it is the most thrilling... and terrifying.... thing that has ever happened to me. I'm such a price concious person in the first place that the idea that I'll need to have ALL THE THINGS very soon gave me more than a little anxiety. Thankfully there is a sweet gesture in the world today known as "THE BABY SHOWER."

We were so so blessed with so so many gifts and much needed items from our friends and family during our wedding showers that I can't wait to see what they pull out of their hats for our long awaited baby girl! But as much as it gives me price anxiety at the thought of MYSELF spending all the money on all the things, it gives me even more to know that someone else is going to have to fork out big money on my behalf.

So I purposed in my mind, as soon as I found out I was pregnant, and that this one was gonna stick, that I wanted to be a "simple mama." I didn't want to overwhelm my daughter, myself, or my husband with a whole lot of unneeded things. I want to bring this little girl into the world with what she NEEDS. I didn't have everything as a child, and I look back at my childhood as probably the absolute best any kid could ever have had. We lived in an old remodeled farm house, my Mom stayed home. We raised a garden because in truth we could barely afford food. My Mom made all my clothes, and what she didn't make she bought second hand. Things were TIGHT for my family but I had no idea I wasn't the richest girl in the world. It was an ideallic childhood, and I want the same for my child. So I deciced I wanted the basic things and if anything else came along, ok. I also didn't want to register for any particular brand of item that wasn't readily available in my area. I didn't want to fall in love with a certain brand of wipes that I couldn't buy at the Dollar General down the road from my house. I don't want to drive 40 minutes into town to buy wipes every other whipstitch. I want to approach this as smart as I possibly can and not make things hard on myself just to say I'm using the baby dolphin spit wipes.

After being engulfed by the baby things on Amazon, I decided I wanted to give their registry system a shot. I'd had an old girl friend from my elementary school days say that she loved using them and that it was so easy for people that didn't know what to buy or couldn't take time to buy off of the registry to just get her an Amazon gift card. Setting up the registry was easy. Adding items to it was easy. The one thing that was tough was that I wasn't actually touching and feeling the items I was registering for, but I figured in the long run it really wouldn't matter. If something was ranked fairly high, I would trust other consumers opinions and just go for it. (So far, several items have been purchased and one has been sent directly to my home, and it's been as easy as pie!)

I also decided that for my non-online shopping friends that I would register with Babies R Us. I had originally planned to register at Target as well, but in my small southern town there is still a lot of up in the air about the Target bathroom situation. Personally I don't care. I don't use a public bathroom unless I have to and can't hold it. And the absolute truth be told, after registering at Amazon, I knew I wouldn't need Target.

So off I go with my Mom on a Monday morning to Babies R Us to get registered.

We walk in and grab a cart and walk back to the registry desk. The girl that got us started was phenominal. She had so much information and got us all squared away with what we needed to get started. She advised us to put A LOT of things on our registry. She said that so many people came in and only put 30 or 40 things on their registry, but registries were meant to have lots of variety. So we took that advice.

We spent a little over 5 hours meticulously wandering the isles of the store, taking things out, touching them, testing them, comparing them. I pushed a stroller up and down the isle for about 10 minutes before deciding it was the one I wanted. I combed through every item on every shelf and determied whether I actually NEEDED it or whether it was just a flighty thing. I did register for some flighty things, but most of what went on the registry was something that I would NEED at some point or another as my daughter grows. Certain items would pop up on the scanner as being "low in quantity" so we had to scan them again, as it prompted us. Otherwise the scanning part was a dream. We were told to scan actual item barcodes and not the barcodes on the wall because often times things are moved around and put in the wrong place. It made sense and so I did as I was told.


After we finally finished, me 7 months pregnant, my Mom a diabetic, we were both thirsty, hungry and exhausted. So we waddled our way back to the registry desk to finalize everything. No one was there, but we were more than happy to sit down and wait. It was about 5minutes before anyone walked past us.

His name was Zim. I remember it because that can't be a real name and he didn't have a clue what he was doing. He asked us if we needed any help and we said that we were just waiting to finish up a registry. He comes and plops down at the computer in front of us and we hand him the scanner. He presses a button and says "Oh wow. Looks like 212 items have already been purchased!" ............... *cricket, cricket*....... I'm stumped, and look at my Mom. She says "Nooooo." Dragging that oh sound out. "We just registered for all those things." "Says that 212 items on the list have been purchased." I shake my head and lean forward. "No that can't be. I just scanned all those things today. I want to finalize the registry so that people can start buying off of it." He says it AGAIN! I AGAIN tell him that that's impossible. That this is MY baby registry, for MY baby. I just scanned half the store and there is NO WAY that anyone could have purchased ONE item for me, let alone 212. He FINALLY seems to comprehend. He plugs the scanner into the computer, all the info uploads and he asks us if we wants a print out. We say yes, He clicks the print button, then proclaims "crap, it's locked up." Finally, after hitting the button 9 more times, the printer starts to print.

At last, someone that knows their butt from a hole in the ground walks up and asks him what he's doing. This is totally NOT something he is qualified to do. He had been pushing a large flat of boxes back to the back room when he'd seen us. My guess is he is muscle, and no more at that store. Maybe in the toy department, but certainly not in the baby department. She takes over. She didn't seem to be very pleased at all, whether it was with him, or us, or the fact that she was at work, IDK. But nevertheless, she stepped in and Zim was gone. It was she that noticed that he'd printed the registry 9 times. And at that point it was 28 pages. (At that point? you ask. Just wait.) That's 252 pages, btw. She gets the printer to stop printing, cancels the job, and returns her attention to our registry.

At one point she asks us, "did you scan a whole bunch of teethers?" I responded with yes because I figure you can't have too many, and once they're out of the teething stage those things can be used as regular toys. She says "ok, cause there's a couple on the registry but a whole bunch out here that show up but aren't on. Do you want me to put them on?" I nodded and said yes, because I scanned like 14 teethers. To me, that's a lot. She didn't give me specific numbers, just said "a whole bunch."  She asked the same about recieveing blankets. We'd registered for all different weights of blankets. My daughter will be born in September and it will still be HOT in KY. But then the temperature will change soon after in October and November and get even colder in December and January before it finally starts to act like it wants to warm up in February and March. The weather around here is so unpredictable that I didn't want to be caught with just thin blankets when it gets to be 0 degrees outside. So I said, yes. We had. She clicked a button. After she finished she asked if we had any questions. We asked about the Endless Earnings program again to clarify how that works, sounds too good to be true so it probably is, and then asked for a print out. 40 pages later I am mortified at the amount of stuff on the registry. I ask if that's common, and the girl says that that is the way they WANT to see registries. The more the better, just like the girl told us that morning. Ok then. She said that our registry looked pretty "ideal." I'm pretty sure she was blowing smoke up my butt.

So it looked like we were finished. We took our goody bag (wasn't a lot of goodies IMO, a weird MAM brand bottle and pacifier and a few pamphlets and very few coupons) and high tailed it to O'Charley's to eat. While we were there I texted my best friend and asked her to get online and look over the BRU registry as a third set of eyes and see if we'd forgotten anything. (They did give us a checklist of what we "needed" and we went by that list and tweaked it to fit our specific needs.) She said she would and would get back to me.

Hours later, I get home and look online. OMG the mess.... The best way I can describe it is like this.... if I registered for a sippy cup in pink, it appeared on my registry in pink, purple, blue, yellow, green and orange. If I registered for the strawberry shaped teether, it appeared on the registry also in the blueberry shape, the grape shape, the pineapple shape, the orange shape and the banana shape. It was as if I had registered for the entire inventory of certain items. I had already been given a blue bottle brush, so I registered for a pink one as a back up. On the registry was the pink brush, two blue ones, the orange one, the purple one and the green one. I immediately texted my best friend and she said she noticed that and it had tipped her off that someone was wrong. She said it didn't seem like me at all to want or need 7 bottle brushes! If I had registered for any item that was "girl" specific, it appeared on the registry in the girl form, as well as for boys and the neutrals. Blankets of varying weights appeared in all possible color combinations. I've never seen such a mess in my LIFE!

All I could determine was that when the girl got "clicky" at the end, she added ALL THE THINGS to the registry. A few items showed up as N/A on the registry and some of them were larger items like an activity mat. So I had to take the item number, plug it into their search engine, find it online and re-register for it. I also had to go through the list item by item and delete all the duplicates. I started at 9 in the morning and didn't finish until 9 at night. I was so exhausted and exasperated by the end of it all.


With our showers just a few days away, my BRU registry still isn't showing that any items have been purchased. Maybe they haven't. So I can't say for sure at this time whether or not this is another BRU problem or not. Amazon is wonderful about not only alerting me when something has been purchased but telling me who has purchased it so I can get started on my thank you cards. We've even already had a gift delivered to our house! I am VERY pleased with Amazon thus far, and NOT SO PLEASED with Babies R Us. The scanning experiance was fun, and I enjoyed getting to do it. I liked touching all the things that my baby will be using and getting a feel for them as a first time Mom to be. But everything after that has been not so nice.


Here's to hoping that everything works out alright and that they are actually taking the items off of my registry when people buy them, otherwise their Endless Earnings program has been shot in the foot. I will update once the showers have wrapped up (July 24th and August 8th are our shower days!) and let you know how it all ended up. I'm excited about it, I'm so happy to finally be at the stage where it's shower appropriate. I'm happy to know that my baby girl is as loved by our friends and family as she is by us.


But for now, if you have the option to register at Buy Buy Baby, I say go for it. There isn't a physical store close enough to us for us to do that, but I imagine they don't put the entire stores inventory on someones registry and leave it for them to clean up on their own.