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 :)