Monday, November 30, 2009

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!

Friday, November 6, 2009

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!

Thursday, November 5, 2009

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 :)