Noah Maxx's Room So Far

This is the Ikea crib we put together yesterday. It was actually really easy to assemble, except that 4 of the screws were 1/4 inch too short, so we had to make a quick trip to Home Depot to get the right size. I'd rather deal with Home Depot than Ikea to get 4 screws.


We got this bumper at Ikea, too. We liked the fun animals.


The table and lamp are also Ikea. I actually put the table together by myself while Nerdstar napped.

Ok, so this is the toy box. My Dad made me this toy box when I was very, little. It's been several colors. I got the bright idea to paint it like this about 8 years ago when we first tried to have a baby. It's been an eyesore - but now it finally has a little boy's room to live in and liven up!


I had intended to get a white ceiling fan, then I saw this at Home Depot and once I got it home decided that using the four primary colors would sort of match the toy box and be kinda cool. It's all reversible, so it could be all white if necessary.


Last, but not least, this is a collection of stuffed animals I've had forever. Guess we'll see if he likes any of them.

And now....

You didn't think this blog was going to be 100% about how smooth this pregnancy has been so far, did you?

Thankfully, for the most part, my pregnancy has been obstacles free.....no morning sickness, huge upswings in weight, but as I venture into the third trimester, I am hitting some snags.

(This is the TMI part) Case in point, I think I've got my first brush with pregnancy hemorrhoid, and how I found out was as I wiped my rear from what I had thought was the conclusion of a bowel movement, there were blood (and lots of it) on the toilet paper!! Not only that, some of that blood had made its way into the toilet too. Not wanting to panic prematurely, I checked to make sure that the blood was coming from "the right place". The GF then checked WebMd to see what it is and assessed what we would do if the heavy bleeding continued...thankfully, it didn't.

Welcome to the third trimester!

It doesn't end here! Before I forget, I must tell you about the rashes which appeared on my chest, and part of my neck! I have no idea what they are, all I know is that they are itching a bit and I hope that they'll disappear soon, otherwise, I might just need to page the skin doc and see what's up.

Lastly, my "sensitive" region has been itching....and I have no idea why either. I called the ob/gyn nurse, who advised me to take benedryl for 5 days and if it's not getting better, then call back for an appointment.

Luckily, Noah Maxx is still active and wiggly despite all of my irritations. To which I hope that they'll only be temporary!

At week 28

From: Nerdstar
Technically, I'll be in week 28 of this pregnancy by tomorrow, but since we've only got a couple of hours until tomorrow is here, I'm going to go ahead and count this day as the beginning of week 28.

I'm feeling generally alright, but lately, I think that I have been getting bigger and heavier. About 2 nights ago, it also became a bit harder for me to breathe while I was laying down, and I attribute it to Noah Maxx's growth pushing on some of my organs. While I have no idea how fast he's growing, I can feel him move a lot more now, as well as where in my belly he has been moving. (Basically everywhere!)

I have also been feeling the desire to take naps, and unfortunately, since I've got to work during the weekdays, I don't really have that luxury. I do try and catch up on the weekends while I still have them!

It's really neat to feel Noah Maxx move, kick, tickle, and punt in my belly! It's hard to not at least wonder what personality he has already. We have scheduled to take 3D ultrasound pictures come week 32 so we can finally get a glimpse of Noah Maxx's face as well as see how big he had gotten to be at that time. It's definitely something to look forward to! We'll be paying out of pocket but I don't think the price is too outrageous. We will post the pictures up once we are done with the ultrasound, so stay tuned!

Painting Done

We spent part of the weekend painting Noah Maxx's room. As always, taping up the edges took almost as long as doing the first coat of paint. I tried to get a lot of that done when Nerdstar was at work Friday. I had thought about doing the whole project by myself last week because I didn't have to work at either job. But I'm really glad Nerdstar helped, mostly because I'm too short to reach the top part of the walls, but also because it's more fun together. We work pretty well together, which is good.

We're really happy with the color. It's a nice mid-afternoon sky blue, not too light. Now we're looking at maybe putting a couple of clouds up. We'll see. And I really think the white furniture is going to look nice. Unfortunately, we didn't find furniture we liked at Babies R Us yesterday. But we did see some at Ikea when we got a little table a couple of weeks ago, which is funny, because I'm not normally a big fan of Ikea.

We started our registry yesterday, but I'm sure it's pretty lame. Ok, or we're lame. I know babies need lots of stuff, but we're really trying to keep things to a minimum. Plus, seriously, there are just too many choices for some things. And other things are just too lame. Just way too much pastel going on.

I'm sure we'll figure it all out eventually.

Nerdstar's still doing well. I'll try to get her to write an update!

Mine

I couldn't feel more like Noah Maxx is my flesh and blood. It's kinda neat and weird.

It first really dawned on me how much my brain was thinking he's mine when I was watching some show on genealogy and ancestry and it was more than half way over when I realized that technically, my family isn't his ancestors.

Our families are very different, especially when it comes to communication and emotions, but mine is almost more excited about us having a baby than hers is. Ever since my nephew was born almost 9 years ago, we've joked that my Mom is a granny monster, and doesn't care how she gets another grandbaby. Although when we called and told them it was a boy she said, "You got it wrong, but that one back and get another" because they were so hoping for a granddaughter this time.

I've been so blessed that pretty much from day one they've treated Nerdstar like family. My nephew calls her "MY Nerdstar". When his class at school talked about family members in the military, he took a pic of her in uniform to school. We laugh at the image of this little boy who couldn't be any more white with his strange Asian "aunt".

I also tend to forget that there's no way in this world he can look like me. In fact, we can't begin to imagine what he's going to look like because he's White/Asian, and there weren't even baby pics of the donor online. (Nerdstar didn't really realize this when she picked him.) I just know that those Chines genes are very strong, so it's not likely he'll be freckled and red-headed.

That's my little boy growing in there.

I know we're not a conventional family, but I feel like we're one. I know in some ways it'll always be weird that he doesn't have a dad. I was looking at info on getting his social security number the other day and the form asks for the numbers of both parents. (Thankfully, there's an "unknown" box you can use.) But that's when I realized it is pretty uncommon to not even know who the father is. And filling out such forms might always be weird for Noah. And while I'm sorry there are things he'll have to deal with - I'm so glad we're going to have him.

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.