Six Weeks Plus For Keelie

Kori snapped this picture this past Tuesday, right about the time Keelie turned six weeks old.

As you can see, she has the pacifier in her mouth. She still usually rejects pacifiers, but from time to time, she will tolerate one for a while.

This past Wednesday, Keelie's Auntie Kendra, back from Hawaii, came over to help out - bless her! Kori has been working so hard on taking care of our demanding little fussy baby. I'm glad that the sisters were able to spend some time together and that Kori had some help while I was out.

Thursday, we took Keelie for a follow-up with the pediatrician. She's gaining weight and growing, so that is good! Yesterday, we had a follow-up with the breastfeeding/lactation specialist, and everything is going well.

Kori and I are still in the adapting mode, and haven't been able to do much other than run some errands, most of them related to Keelie. I know, I know... welcome to parenthood! By the time we get the hang of Keelie as an infant, she'll be a toddler!

Here's another picture of Keelie from just a few minutes ago.

A Bump in the Road

Keelie has been a lean baby since we brought her home - not a chubby baby at all. She’s always had plenty of energy and has been feisty and strong. Remember from our previous entries that she’s been really fussy? Well, she might have been burning up too many calories with her crying and kicking and yells.

We discovered this past Thursday that little Keelie had lost weight when she should have been gaining it. After a visit to her pediatrician, we took her in to a hospital. She was admitted to the hospital and all sorts of tests were done, and lots of questions were asked. Her feeding schedule was normal. She was getting her nutrients. Yet, she had lost weight.

Kori stayed with Keelie in the hospital, and I would run errands and otherwise be there all day, but go home overnight. People Kori used to work with and someone she went to school with stopped by as part of their jobs. That was the silver lining to being in the hospital.

Grampa Pellman came down to hold Keelie on Saturday, and Nanny came down to hold her yesterday. Keelie really liked being held by them. Puma and Granddaddy Keel would have been there, too, but they were out of the state when all of this went down. We kept in contact via phone calls.

There has been no definitive conclusion about Keelie’s condition. It could simply be a matter of Keelie burning up too many calories. That's would probably be the "best" cause.

Keelie was given a new feeding regimen and we brought her home yesterday. Hopefully, this new feeding schedule will be enough to put Keelie on the right track. If she fails to gain the right amount of weight, it could be an indication of something more serious. We have lots of follow-up appointments scheduled.

Poor Kori, who had been in the hospital the whole time with Keelie, is running on very little sleep. I am exhausted, but I’ve had a lot more sleep than her! I took the day off so I could catch up on sleep, and make phone calls, and run errands related to keeping Keelie healthy.

There have been a couple of changes for Keelie along with the new feeding frequency. She’s not as fussy, though it hasn’t gone away completely. And - she’s finally started to send some of the milk back up. She had never done that before.

Thanks for reading, thanks for checking in with us, and thanks for all of your advice, prayers, and encouragement. Oh- and if you want to send us a message instead of leaving a comment here, you can do so at KEPellman [at] yahoo [dot] com.

Here are a couple of cell phone pictures. One is in the hospital and the other is from when we got back home and I was holding her while she slept.