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The iParenting Media Awards program helps parents find the best products for their families.
Laurie Smith
By Lyn Mettler
Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a mother who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a woman and a mother. Above all, the Mom of the Month is dedicated to her children. Rich or poor, famous or not, she shines as an example of what mothering is all about.
Last fall, Laurie Smith, designer on The Learning Channel's popular TV show Trading Spaces, was riding in the back of a cab on her way to a photo shoot in New York City. She passed a store that she remembered going by four years ago when she first arrived in the city to attend design school and thought to herself, "If someone had told me all that I would have now – a hit TV show, a happy marriage and a baby – I would never have believed it," Smith says.
Smith, 31, now lives in Jackson, Miss., with her husband, Brad, and their 5-month-old son, Gibson, and is combining her design skills with her dream of being on camera. Shortly after finishing design school in New York City, Smith got a call from a friend that the Discovery Channel was looking for designers for a crazy new show. So she sent in a demo tape, flew in for the audition, and she says, "Two weeks later I did the first episode with Frank."
At that time, Smith says, they were begging people to let them come in and redo their homes; now they receive thousands of applications from folks dying to be on the show. And just as the show's audience is expanding, so is Smith's family. She and her husband welcomed son, Gibson Witherspoon Smith, last August in what Smith calls "a dream delivery."
But before Smith and her husband could even think about getting pregnant, they first had to deal with her endometriosis. The lining of her uterus, Smith says, had attached to the outside of her uterus and was beginning to reach her fallopian tubes, which can cause problems when trying to conceive.
Smith had a routine laparoscopy to clear out the growth, and the doctor told her they could try for pregnancy. But Trading Spaces had just begun, and she didn't feel they were quite ready. "My doctor said we shouldn't hang out forever, but could probably take a year," she says. So that's just what they did, and around Thanksgiving of 2001, the couple conceived.
You may have remembered seeing Smith and her growing belly on a few episodes of Trading Spaces last year. She kept up her hectic pace of traveling every other week, doing two shows back to back until her 8th month of pregnancy. "My husband and I decided that between January and April of [2002], I was home maybe 22 days," Smith says.
And she was lucky in that she experienced no morning sickness, so it didn't stifle her travel at all. Instead, Smith says she had the appetite of a house and gained 14 pounds in the first trimester alone.
And for moms who will be experiencing a summer pregnancy, she highly recommends it. She says it allowed her to wear flip flops (which is all she really could wear because of swollen ankles), sit around the air-conditioning and float in the pool. "I think if ever there's a time to be pregnant it's the middle of summer," Smith says.
While Smith was pregnant, she began considering whether or not she would like to try for a natural childbirth. "Early on in the pregnancy, I had thought, 'OK, I'll have an epidural. Everyone has an epidural,'" she says. However, after a bit of reading and research, she says, "I started to really become inspired about doing it naturally." She had the support of her sister-in-law, who had delivered naturally, and she felt like her painful struggle with endometriosis gave her an idea about the type of pain she would face. "I had experienced discomfort to an extreme level with endometriosis," Smith says. "I felt like maybe I'd tolerated at least some level of the pain of childbirth."
And it turns out she was right. "It is excruciating," she says. But at the same time, "It was familiar. I knew how to handle it," Smith says.
She credits a lot of factors with helping her deliver naturally, including the fact that she went into labor in the morning after a full night's rest and a full breakfast. "I had energy, and it really helped," Smith says. Also, she says, "99.9 percent depends on your support. Your delivery nurse, honestly, is just key." She also had a quick delivery, going from 3 to 4 centimeters dilation at 8:30 a.m. to having the baby at 1:47 p.m.
"I just prayed the whole time," Smith says. "It was so surreal. I never opened my eyes." But she survived, and she says she felt great afterward. The minute the baby was out, she bounced right back.
Her talent for design came in handy when it was time to create a nursery for Gibson. The family lives in a small bungalow in a historic district of Jackson and so are a bit space-challenged. Gibson's nursery is a small room, which forced Smith to come up with some creative solutions, such as using the built-in desk as a changing table and turning the cabinets into a closet with a hanging rod. The room does have lots of character, however, with cathedral ceilings and a window with a touch of stained glass.
To get started, Smith says, she picked her bedding – a cute pattern called Chicken Little made by The Land of Nod. Since she didn't know the sex of the baby she chose colors that would work for either including cream, red, yellow and green. After she chose the bedding, she added checked drapes, and lastly, she chose a vibrant green for the walls. "It's kind of a neat little nook," she says.
"Planning a nursery, especially for a first child, is such a fun, magical thing to experience," Smith says. She advises moms planning their own nurseries to first find something for the room that they fall in love with. "That can be your inspiration," she says. "Then your heart's gonna pour more into the room." She also tells moms that you definitely don't have to find out the sex of the child to make a great nursery. Instead, have fun with primary colors, she says.
Smith also says you can make a beautiful baby's room on a budget, and she should know since she's limited to $1,000 per room on Trading Spaces. She suggests getting a cheaper crib, such as a Ginny Lind, and painting it a bright color or even making your own bedding. "There are ways around it," she says.
For now, Smith is back on the road designing fun rooms for the folks on Trading Spaces, though traveling at a less hectic pace. While she's breastfeeding, which she hopes to do at least until Gibson is 6 months old, she plans to take the baby with her accompanied by a nanny. In fact, Gibson had already been to New York for a photo shoot and L.A. for the Emmys at only 5 weeks.
After he's weaned, however, she says they'll just have to see what works best for everyone as far as travel goes. Says Smith, "We're gonna figure it out, work our way through it."
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