Lawyering Up

We've always known that we were going to have to hire a lawyer when we had a baby. We knew when we chose Virginia over Maryland or DC I probably wouldn't have the option of second parent adoption, and we'd just have to do as much as we could legally to protect me as Pinhead's Mom. And we're still happy to be in VA and not MD or DC.

I just got off the phone with a really good lawyer, we set up a meeting for a couple of weeks from now. It's going to cost us about $2500 to do a comprehensive set of about 13 documents, wills, living wills, power of attorney, etc. Now, I know that straight couples have to do a lot of those documents as well, or at least they should. But still...

The lawyer did mention that if we could have the baby in DC, that would be much better. Um, I'm just not sure that's feasible. It's highly unlikely our ob/gyn docs would travel to DC, or even have privileges in a DC hospital. It would also be a major pain to find a DC ob/gyn - although it's not impossible. The lawyer will explain a lot more about the advantages, and I guess we'll think about it.

We're not really worried or paranoid about me not being about to do anything with/for Noah Maxx. Maybe we're just naive. But a few weeks ago we signed documents that in case of our friend getting deployed with the Army, I get her three kids. If I can legally take care of a friend's kids, I'm pretty sure I can take care of Nerdstar's and mine.

And we don't intend to live in Virginia forever. Maybe not even another five years. So, one way or another, one day I'll adopt my boy.

Noah Maxx

Pixie asked how we came up with his name. I've wanted a little boy named Noah for many years. Thankfully, Nerdstar likes it, too!

So then we thought it'd be Noah Ben - Ben being her grandfather's American name.

One day I read the name Max Fightmaster (honestly a soldier's name!) And we loved it!! It's second only to Moxie Crimefighter, Penn Jillette's daughter.

We considered Maxx Lee, Lee being the middle name of everyone in my family except me.

Finally we realized with both really liked Noah and Maxx - and decided Maxx had to have 2 xs. Heh.

We're not entirely sure if we'll call him Noah or Maxx - we'll see how tough he looks when he's born. When we talk to him we call him Noah Maxx Pinhead :-)

He'll have Nerdstar's last name. She might also come up with a Chinese name for him, but her grandpa was always the one who did that, and he's no longer with us.

Welcome to the 3rd Trimester

Wow. We made it to the third trimester. Six months down, just over three to go. Nerdstar says the time has gone pretty fast, for me time takes forever. And I'm ok with it going slow now, as long as it continues to go slow in the future!

It seems like now is the time we're supposed to get in gear and get things ready. I still feel like another three months is so far away. So far we've bought him a little t-shirt that says "Cute But A Little Evil." I can't wait to buy him some wifebeaters and pose him with a little cigar. (See, there is a reason it's 2 Bad Moms.) Oh yeah, I did buy a bunch of little hangers for his closet.

I think part of why I've been waiting to get things ready is because I've been so afraid to jinx things. And then also having the thought in the back of my head that if the worst did happen I'd never be able to handle undoing what we'd done to get ready. But I'm feeling good about everything and pretty much ready to get ready. I even started a list of things we know we need.

I was going to paint his room this coming week, but Nerdstar wants to help, so we'll do it next weekend. This weekend we have to do a little moving around of stuff, the extra bed and chest of drawers to the now guest bedroom. Monday I gotta take a big box of stuff to Goodwill. Nothing major, just stuff that needs to get done before we do more. Also sometime before the end of next Sunday we'll go do a registry at Babies R Us. I thought about doing one at Target as well, but honestly, I don't like Target.

Little Noah Maxx has been really active at times, but can also be pretty mellow. From day one, when we've had our hands on the belly and talked to him, we've told him to be happy and mellow. But there have been times the past week or so we swear he's jumping rope with the umbilical cord!

More than anything we're getting to where we just can't wait to see what our little fella looks like.

For Christmas, Nerdstar had asked my Mom to make us a photo album of pics of my nephew. Because she does scrapbooking, it took her until this week to get it to us. It's so cool. Zach turns 9 next month and I can't believe how old/big he's getting. It was being around him when he was just a tiny thing that made me decide maybe having a kid wouldn't be so bad! It's amazing to see how different he looked as a baby to when he's three, then how he changes again every couple of years. He's such a cutie - and has a fantastic little evil grin sometimes.

Mostly we just hang out and feel him moving around as much as we can. Life is good.

The belly shot

At 25 weeks pregnant, I finally have grown a belly! Pardon my tacky polka dot undie! For the longest time the GF was wondering when I will finally grow a somewhat substantial belly so I would finally look pregnant. I told her to be patient, because increase in belly size could practically happen overnight, and it sort of did!

I now feel like I'm carrying a ton of bricks in my belly, not only is it getting larger, they are also very firm to the touch. Pinhead has also been growing to the point where he is now kicking me above the belly button, and sometimes quite hard too! To the point where I can see my belly "dancing"!

I cannot believe that we're more than halfway through this pregnancy! We can't wait to see the little guy and play with him! It is my hope though, that the labor will be quick and I will be able to withstand the pain...but most people tell me that I'll soon forget that, so we shall see!

Week 23 and Stuff

Nerdstar had another ob appointment last Thursday, everything is still right on target. She's only gained about 2, maybe 3, pounds so far, but Pinhead is growing just fine. Just means she's losing it somewhere else for now. She's got a cute little baby belly! We absolutely love feeling him squirm around in there. But we can never figure out where his head or feet are. He tends to be a bottom dweller down in her belly. And we think he's in tune to her eating schedule because when it's past time he starts kicking!

It's crazy how happy he already makes me. I giggle a lot when we feel him moving. I already think he's the cutest thing ever and we haven't even seen his face.

In the next few weeks we're going to start getting his room ready. We picked out a paint color, but the weather turned cold and wet, so I'm waiting for it to be dry and warm again. We've got a couple of places to go look at furniture - I think the plan is for blue walls and white furniture, then we'll have mostly red and yellow accent stuff like curtains and the lamp.

When I was a little kid my Dad made me a toy box. It was white. I still have it. Seven or eight years ago, when I first tried to get preggers, I decided to be adventurous and paint it in primary colors: red, blue, green and yellow. The other day when we were looking at ceiling fans for the baby room and the guest bedroom, the white one has reversible fan blades. So I put it together so that there are two white fan blades and then one white, one red, one yellow and one blue. It's kinda neat.

It's kinda crazy the amount of stuff we have for a baby/kid. Ok, not the essential gear type stuff, but fun stuff.

In college a lot of my friends were elementary ed majors, so I collected a few children's books along the way. I also have all of my Dr. Seuss books from when I was little. We've got quite a few kids animated movies and cartoons on dvd, and a list of a few more waiting on Amazon. Several years ago, again when we first started thinking about babies and maybe even before, my Mom gave me a lot of Pooh stuff - a piggy bank, lots of the stuffed characters, a set of bookends. It's so cool to get that stuff out of storage and start putting it in his room.

I'm also glad we're both on the same page when it comes to ideas on raising a child. It makes life so much easier!

This is the glamour shot

Our son's enormous penis!! Hi! This is Nerdstar, and I'm finally stepping in to make my first entry in this blog!
Why did it take so long for me to finally post something? Well, it's just that the GF's writing is so much more eloquent and has more emotions than I do, so I've basically just stepped back and let her blog.
So far, my pregnancy has been really smooth, no morning sickness, but just some more tiredness and now the ankle and feet swelling at the end of the day. My weight gain has been slow and steady, and I'm thankful for that! As the baby grows in size, I am sure that in a while I will look even more and more huge, like a beached whale in the summer sun, just like the way that I should! :-)
We cannot wait to see our little boy and play with him, have him befriend our pets, and make up all these stories with him!
Will update more as this adventure is coming along!

Week 21 Ultrasound

Wow. We finally had the ultrasound today. We're at week 21 day 3, and the baby is developmentally at week 21 day 3! It weighs 1 pound.

All along we've had no clue or inkling if it was a boy or girl. But, night before last, in the middle of the night I finally decided I thought it was a boy. And it is!!

As the day has progressed I've found I'm actually a little relieved. The thought of all that pink just didn't make me happy.

The ultrasound was really cool. It took about 45 minutes and checked every part of his anatomy. We got to see his brain and it's measurements. We got a long look at his beating heart. We saw his arms and legs and feet and hands, his kidneys, she measured his stomach (like a belt around his waist). He was all comfy down in the bottom of Nerdstar's belly and for a long time had his arms crossed with his hands in front of his face. We needed him to move a little to get a better look at his spine, and he finally did, right at the end. That's good because otherwise we would have had to go back in two weeks. He even peed during the middle of it, she knew because as she was trying to look at his stomach and bladder - the bladder got a lot smaller :-)

Did I mention how cool it all was?? They didn't put the whole long thing on cd, so we have a couple of good printed pics. We'll try to get them scanned in and uploaded this weekend.

Nerdstar's sister has said for a while now she hopes it's a boy. My parents already have a grandson, so they were really hoping for a girl. When I told Mom this afternoon she just said, "well, put it back and get the right one." Heh.

The one symptom Nerdstar has had this whole time is just being more tired than usual, so we've perfected being lazy. I told her that next month we have to start getting in gear. We've got to buy a few things for the guest room so we can move the bed in the baby's room now into there, then I'm going to paint the baby's room and get it some furniture. None of it is really major, I think we both just have a hard time picking furniture and stuff. Thankfully, we do tend to have similar taste.

At least now my worrying will mostly be limited to car wrecks.