the arduino didn't stop working. I just clipped the pin from the wave shield that connects to the 5v on the arduino. I got a new pin onto the wave shield and now it works again.
The gps unit's power consumption is 44mA according to this: http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/GPS/EM-406A_User_Manual.PDF
I've looked over the wave shield pages but I cant really find anything. http://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/GPS/EM-406A_User_Manual.PDF