Bethany is 2 months old!

Updated with stats at 2 month apt on 12/30:
10 lb 5 oz - 15%
22.5 in length - 50%
14.5 in head - 10%
The Dr. said she's doing really well and is happy with her growth rate. Its amazing that she is 10 lbs already at 2 months when she started out at 5 lbs! We did one more check for her jaundice levels and hopefully the results come back in the normal range tomorrow.

Original post:
We had a great Christmas last week! There was a huge snowstorm so everything was cancelled including our family Christmas Eve celebration (rescheduled for Jan 2) so we left for the cabin on the 23rd and stayed until Saturday just the three of us. We made a big Christmas meal, went for a snowshoeing hike and just relaxed as a family.

Now we are at Bethany's 2 month birthday! We have her apt on Wednesday so I'll update then with her stats. She is staying awake longer during the day and we're still working on getting her to sleep longer at night :) She loves to look over my shoulder while walking around and holds her head up herself. On tummy time she lifts her head up while pushing up on her arms. She still loves her baths and is getting better with diaper changes! She smiles more and more likes to look at lights and ceiling fans - cheap entertainment I suppose. It is hard to get her attention if she is really concentrated on a super neat light.

2 Months old - December 28th, 2009: She can hold her head up, but can't sit by herself if not set correctly (whoops)... but this way she looks like she really likes her monkey :)

Our first family ornament

The cabin decorated for Christmas!

Dan and Bethany at our Christmas!

Bethany enjoying our snowshoe adventure!

Christmas is almost here!

We've already celebrated quite a few separate times, but Christmas Day is still coming! We are planning on going to the cabin, just the three of us, and with all of the snow expected it should be a very white Christmas.

I downloaded the pictures off my camera and wanted to share a few pictures over the past couple of weeks.

Bethany is really enjoying staring at things, especially when they are within 12-18 inches from her face. Right now the toys hanging from her car seat are fascinating.

Even though my mom and I are the only ones that like to make gingerbread cookies, I couldn't let the tradition die and made them myself. Bethany was helping but got tired and fell asleep on the couch.
Aunt Amber held Bethany at our family Christmas so she could get to know her new cousin that is expected to arrive in February!

You can't read her shirt, but it says Santa, define "nice" and she's wearing a Baby's 1st Christmas bib. Aunt Amber and Uncle Brent are practicing...

Me and Bethany at my parents house in front of the tree

Bethany and her new stocking from Grandma and Grandpa. She had lots of fun toys in it the next morning!

I think her santa hat is a bit big... and does pink go with red??

Here is the gingerbread man for Bethany - complete with a bib.

And, my picture with Grandpa at his 90's birthday party.

The other big news of the week is that Dan's sister had a baby girl on Sunday the 20th! Emily Ann was 7 lbs, 14 oz and 19 3/4 inches long. She is coming home today and her brothers Paul III (4) and Jacob (2) are excited to meet her according to Grandma and Papa Totman! We are so thankful that Emily is healthy and Melissa did well. We can't wait to meet her!

We have the Bauman Christmas on Christmas Eve at my parents house, weather permitting, and then its off to the cabin for a long weekend. Dan gets Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off so we are looking forward to some time together on our 1st Christmas as a family.

We hope you have a blessed Christmas with your family too!

Almost 7 weeks

Bethany will be 7 weeks old tomorrow! We heard back from the Dr. yesterday and her jaundice levels dropped all the way to 9.8. I thought they would be down slightly but didn't want to get my hopes up... I am so glad they dropped as low as they did. Now we can stop with the weekly trips to the lab and wait until her 2 month visit after Christmas to see if her color still looks better. If so, we won't have to do bloodwork - yea!

Its be fun to enjoy the holidays this year with Bethany. This past weekend we celebrated Christmas with Dan's parents as we are unsure when his sister will have their baby and his parents will drive off to Chicago. We also had the Momentum Christmas party on Friday night at church with yummy potluck food and good fellowship with friends. Then on Sunday we drove to Kerkhoven to celebrate my Grandpa's 90th birthday at their church. It was a great time to take pictures with family and see people from my hometown that I haven't seen in years. Bethany was a big hit and Grandpa loved carrying her around to show her off. Then that night we saw my moms parents from CA along with my aunt for dinner at mom and dads. Bethany got to meet both sets of great-grandparents in the same day!

I will have to figure out how to post videos on the blog soon. Bethany still LOVES her baths and yesterday I videoed her for a little bit just lounging around in the warm water. She is definitely awake for longer periods of time and loves looking around and listening to new noises and voices. She did so well with new people this weekend and the background noise of lots of voices lulled her to sleep for much of it! I am now washing her 0-3 month clothes as she is graduating into them from her newborn sizes. When I was pregnant I thought she'd go right into 3 month clothes because of her length but because she was born early we got a lot of use out of newborn outfits!

Here are a couple pictures:

Bethany with Daddy watching the Vikings game - well I think she was watching him cheer!

Bethany in her sleepsack

Hanging out on the couch at Grandma and Grandpas with all her friends

Going for a walk in the sling

Smile!

A week ago we thought we noticed Bethany smiling! Both of us saw it at different times and I even caught the end of one on camera last week. It is fun to see her grow and be so much more alert. She watches everything and reacts to noises and her toys hanging from her carseat and bouncy seat and swing. She is making a lot more noises when eating and sleeping... Dan thinks she is taking after me and talking in her sleep :)

Smile caught on camera at 5 weeks - sorry the picture is so close, it was hard to take while holding her and trying to get her to smile. The rest I didn't even get her face in the picture!

At last weeks one month apt Bethany weighed 7 lb 4 oz - getting bigger! Her jaundice levels were the same as I suspected and so the Dr. still wants to keep an eye on her each week with more bloodwork. Because they are mid-teens (14-16) they are a little close to the dangerous 20+ level where they worry about long term brain and liver issues so while we want them to go down we really just want to make sure they don't go up. Most likely we'll just wait it out and hopefully they'll be gone by her 2 month apt.

It is getting colder outside!! November was beautiful and I loved being home with Bethany so I could take her on walks outside. Now we go out to the mailbox quickly and back otherwise we stay inside or bring her from the house to the warm car. Those Bundle Me covers for carseats are wonderful! We are supposed to get a big snowstorm tomorrow - good day to stay inside and wrap Christmas presents!

Bethany is 1 month old!

Wow, time goes so fast! On Saturday Bethany turned 1 month old. Then the next day on Sunday the 29th it was her official due date! They had changed it from the 24th to the 29th so she was 4.5 weeks early.

It has been fun getting to know Bethany and her personality. She's been doing much better sleeping at night and I usually only have to get up once between 11 p.m.-7 a.m. to feed her. She is much more alert and when she is focused enough to look at our faces we can tell she follows our eyes if we move. We are having her try tummy time at least once a day and she's doing really well holding her head up and switching her head from side to side to look both ways. She still loves her baths and also sitting in her bouncy seat with the bathroom fan on when I take a shower in the morning. Her little awake squeaks and noises have more sound to them now, at first she just had her mouth open and faster breathing but now we can identify more coo's.

We are still a little concerned about her jaundice levels. They have not gone down yet so we have another apt today to do more blood work that they will analyze with Children's specialty doctors to see what we should do next. They aren't dangerously high levels, but moderate so they want to keep an eye on her. Hopefully I'll have good news today or at least an action plan.

Dan's birthday was last week and then we celebrated Thanksgiving at my sisters house. It is fun to spend time with family and friends now that Bethany is here. She is very popular and I never have a lack of people wanting to hold her for me if I need to get something done when we are with family.

Last week Linnea came over to take pictures of Bethany. It was our second try as the first time Bethany was a little hungry so this time I had her well fed and warm with a space heater in the room. I think Linnea and I wished we were dressed for summer though - it was hot in there! Linnea took so many wonderful pictures but I picked a few cute ones from each outfit to share... Thanks Linnea!

More pictures of Bethany

Thanks Scott for taking these!

Bethany's jaundice levels are getting better now that she is on the billy blanket at home. We're hoping we only have one more day of this and she can be done tomorrow. She's doing really well though and except for the sleep deprivation we're having a great time being parents!

Introducing.... Bethany Claire Totman!

We are so excited to announce the arrival of our little girl, Bethany Claire! She was quite the surprise coming 4.5 weeks early at 11:49 p.m. on October 28th, 2009. She weighed 5 lbs 10 oz and was 20 inches long. The Dr's think that if she had gone full term she would have been 23 inches long!

Instead of expecting a turkey baby we got a pumpkin baby! She has been such a joy to get to know this last week after arriving home on Monday, November 2nd. Because she was preterm she was in the special care (NICU) nursery for a few days so they could monitor her breathing, jaundice and feeding. Luckily she's been feeding really well and after going down to 5 lb 3 oz, she is back up to 5 lb 9 oz today!

This week we had a home nurse come visit us and Bethany's jaundice levels are still high and so we are doing some home photo light therapy to try and get the levels on track. Bethany's pediatrician said its normal for preterm babies to have jaundice because their livers haven't fully developed yet so we are hoping that we have better news tomorrow when they check her again.

It has been so much fun to get to know Bethany; and Dan and I are getting used to the limited sleep. Hopefully Bethany realizes that night is for sleeping, and day is for being awake soon :)

Here are a few pictures of her first week of life. I'm sure we'll be posting more often as we get used to our new life!

Taking her home from the hospital on Monday, November 2nd

I love this picture of Bethany's feet with her dad's hands

Dan's parents brought a cake for her real birthday!

Here she is in the NICU at 1 day old after her first bath. We gave her a mohawk :)

Church Baby Shower!

Last week my wonderful small group at church hosted a baby shower for me! It was so much fun, and great to see so many of the women that mean so much to me. My mom and sister were able to come and Courtney was here from Tucson that week so it worked out well. Dan's mom got back from Japan 2 days later so it was too bad she couldn't make it or Dan's sister who was also here last weekend.

We played a couple cute game including a nursery rhyme game and memory game of various baby items in a basket that Erin and Linnea put together for me. The prizes were wonderful Caldrea items from Christina and they all had yummy food for the snacks. My favorite parts though were when Linnea gave me some words of wisdom for being a mom and when Erin had me sit in the middle of the room and people prayed for me and the baby. It was so neat to think about our little girl being here to meet these special people in a few weeks.

Thank you for the wonderful shower! I am so happy my daughter will be able to grow up with such a great church family!

Here I am at 33.5 weeks at the time of the shower!

Look at all the yummy food!

I don't think Amber was doing very well at the nursery rhyme game :) She still has a few more months to learn before her little boy comes!

Me and my hostesses: Erin, Linnea, Kara and Christina

Baby girl cupcake for my 33.5 week old baby bump

Put crib together. Check.

We finally put together the crib last Thursday night. We spent a few hours working on it and we were quite sore after sitting on the floor that long! It looks great and I just had to iron the bedskirt and get the bedding in it after we put it together. Dan added a couple of things he thought the baby would like too.

Here is what I came home to peaking over the edge of the crib...A very realistic looking monkey (i.e. not "baby-cute" looking) and a football from daddy. I'm sure she'll love them :)

Amber finally announced on her blog that she is pregnant too! It is so much fun that Dan's sister is due a month after us (Dec 27th) and Amber is due 3 months after us (Feb 22nd). Melissa found out she is having a girl, so I'm hoping at Amber's ultrasound next week they have a girl too. Wouldn't it be fun to have a built in playmate no matter which side of the family we are visiting? Yesterday we had family dinner at my parents house and took a couple of belly pictures of me at 31 weeks and Amber at 18 weeks that Amber put on her blog.

Last weekend I went to Trout Lake Camp with 16 other women from church and had so much fun. I went to camp every year as a kid and loved it. Now they have more modern options so our cabin had a bathroom which was nice for me. We had a wonderful speaker, the music/worship was great, and the food was actually delicious! Our group went for a pontoon ride, I took a tour of a new part of the camp, and had a massage. We had a campfire the last night and had fun getting to know everyone better. I love getting to know other women from our church that I may not know otherwise and this weekend was a perfect opportunity to do that. I think God has a plan for the women at Cross of Glory and I'm excited to see what it is.

30 weeks!

Today I had a Dr. apt and everything looks great. I'm measuring on track for my due date anywhere between 11/24 and 11/29. He said if I go until 11/29 (one of the due dates they gave me) it might be an 8 lb baby so she must be gaining more weight now and not as tiny as they said before. I still don't know how they know, and he said its all just a guess when there aren't any upcoming ultrasounds. Either way, I'm guessing she'll be close to her original due date of 11/24 and 7 lbs 12 oz. but who knows :)

He also said that my bike riding experience on Sunday where I started getting a lot of contractions probably means I shouldn't do that as much. He is pretty laid back and just said if I start feeling Braxton-Hicks to stop - kind of what I thought. I can travel until the 2nd week of October, so only a few weeks left!

The crib finally arrived today! I will go pick it up tomorrow and then I'm sure we'll want to put it together right away. I've also been nesting at work cleaning files, etc. I'm sure Dan wishes I will start doing that at home too, but I've been waiting to get the crib so I can finally get everything setup.

This weekend I'm going to Trout Lake with some ladies from church for a fall retreat. It looks like great weather and I signed up for a 10 minute massage during free time that I am looking forward to. It will be great to get away and see what God has in store for us this weekend.

Here are my 30 week baby bump pictures!

Labor Day Weekend!

What a BEAUTIFUL weekend it was! It was perfect outside and we had so much fun at the lake! Dan and I went out on Friday night after the Vikings pre-season game and went kayaking on Saturday a.m. The water was like glass and we paddled effortlessly through the next two lakes. Tom and Becky and Adelyn came over that afternoon and we had fun on the boat for a few hours. Adelyn screamed as the wind blew in her face - she loved it! Allison and Jeremy came for dinner and then that night everyone had a little co-ed baby shower for us. We played the "traits" game, a matching baby game, and then we bobbed for pacifiers and decorated onesies. It was so much fun! The guys really got into the competition when bobbing for pacifiers, and were very creative on the onsies too! My favorites were Tom's: Made in Vegas, and Allison's: Party. My crib. 3a.m. BYOB (bring your own bottle). I had fun making mine - I smeared brown paint all over the bottom of my onesie and wrote Little Pooper over the top of it :)

Allison had been having her pre-term contractions again so they left in the middle of the night to go home.. but she was feeling better after resting on Sunday. Her baby is due 3 weeks after me so hopefully she can hang on a few more weeks and at least get to 30. Sunday Kevin came out to try out the boat and fish with Dan and Tom while Becky and I chatted during Adelyn's naps. We went tubing and I got banned from trying to ski :( Oh well, at least I got to go faster than normal on the tube! Dan was driving so he just made sure I didn't fly off.

Yesterday Dan and I went kayaking again in the morning and then relaxed on the boat. I couldn't believe we had such great weather all weekend. I wanted to package it up and six months from now trade it in for one of the cold snowy days!

I'll post pictures soon.... Thank you Belisles and Houles for the great baby shower! It was so much fun - we love you guys!