This is the halfway point...or so they tell me

Today marks 20 weeks for pregnancy (five months). According to thenestbaby.com she's the size of a canteloupe (about six and a half inches). Still no official names for this little one. My grandmother did suggest Patricia Monette after both my grandmothers but having PMS as initials as a girl is not so desirable so sorry grandma, that one is out. True to Taylor/Moreira fashion however, the nicknames have begun. Brieanne calls her "Patootie" and my mom calls her something different depending on the week.


The bella band has become an integral part of my wardrobe, helping me transition to more comfortable clothes until I'm ready to embrace maternity wear. While I begin the march toward maternity clothes, Josh is slimming down as he continues to work towards his marathon goal. This weekend Josh and Nik ran 15 miles! Feel free to join me in cheering them on on Aug. 3 at the SF marathon.

Gary and Janice visited us this weekend and despite how active this little cantaloupe has been lately (very active), she didn't cooperate with significant enough movement for anybody to feel except me. We had another houseguest this weekend too, Ruby, Lola's miniature golden doodle friend. This photo is significant because it represents the only time these two puppies were still the whole weekend. Lola also celebrates her 1st birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday Lola!

Its a...

GIRL.

For the 70% of you that voted for a girl, you were right. We had the privilege of observing our little girl for almost an hour on the ultrasound as they checked her over. According to the technician she is very active and cooperative, they were able to get all the shots they needed. Everything looks good.

Josh and I were in awe as we got to see her in more detail and development. We are thrilled that she seems to be doing well and developing normally. It is confirmation once again what a gift and miracle a baby is. Since the ultrasound yesterday she's been increasingly active and at times Josh can even feel her moving around. We're at 19 weeks.
She's currently about the size of a mango or a large heirloom tomato. (thank you babycenter.com and thenestbaby.com for the size references)

26 hours and counting

Ok, so really having a countdown clock to my ultrasound is a bit ridiculous but we do have 26 hours until we find out whether baby smith is a boy or girl. You can all say a prayer that this little one throws modesty out the window and makes it evident in the ultrasound what gender he/she is. We're having dinner with my parents and sister and brother in law to tell them what we find out and we'll be phoning Josh's family so after that I'll post on the blog and perhaps include some photos (unless they are just too immodest). Cast your votes now...we'll see who guessed right...

A few pictures from the weekend

Baby's Room

Brieanne has been plotting the nursery since she found out we were having a baby. Even though we do not yet know the gender (9 days, not that I'm counting) we have the whole thing mostly planned out. We've decided that if its a girl we'll add more red accents (see picture below). The inspiration for the room was the book, The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, a childhood favorite of mine.

A few pieces of the nursery have been up for discussion (the crib, changing table, etc). We have been doing a bit of researching on safe options for the baby. We found a couple of cribs that we really liked for their simplicity and baby environment friendly. We plan to refinish the rocker my mom used with Brieanne and I. We are also going to refinish my toybox from childhood. We had planned on converting the desk I used growing up into a changing table until Brieanne called on Monday while I was on my way back to work from my doctor appointment. She reminded me about a promotion that both of us had entered in April by one of the crib manufacturers that we were looking at. She won the promotion which meant she won a changing table! So, Brieanne gets the gold star for the week. The changing table and accompanying crib can be see on the dsign sample above. Stay tuned as the nursery continues to unfold.

16 no 17 no 16

Today I had a doctor appointment. After assuring Josh that there would not be an ultrasound he felt more comforted about not being able to be at there. I met my doctor for the first time (just switched from Vallejo to Walnut Creek and got assigned all new doctors). She was wonderful and I look forward to meeting with her in the future.

We received clarification about the due date. Evidently ultrasounds spit out a due date based on some markers from the picture but the doc's office doesn't always go with that. So I thought we were 17 weeks 2 days along but in reality we're 16 weeks 5 days along (four days, big deal). We're back in the middle of October. So we've regressed from onion to avocado in size but that's perfectly appropriate for Cinco De Mayo, right?

Today I got to hear the heartbeat on the doppler device. Truly amazing. Though I haven't felt the baby move yet the doctor assured me he/she was. We'd hear wub wub wub (the heartbeat) then whoosh (a kick) and woosh and wub wub wub woosh. The doctor said "are you sure you can't feel anything because this baby is kicking like crazy." The baby was also difficult to pin down because he/she was moving all over and we kept having to move the doppler to get the heartbeat.

Again, I am in awe of this miracle.