The Holliday Family

So what do superman and I have in common?

We can both be in more than one place at the same time.

My brother Matt is getting married this weekend and due to Ruby’s early appearance I won’t be able to attend the wedding, it’s in Guelph.

So my family, being my family, did the next best thing.

1. They got a picture of me
2. blew it up to life size
3. tiled it across 8 large sheets of paper
4. printed it out
5. and glued it to a large piece of cardboard.

So come Saturday afternoon I may be standing up with my brothers as a groomsman after all.

The original picture had me holding Marla’s pregnant stomach.  Marla has since been cut out of the picture so now it just looks like I’m trying to grab everyone’s package:)

I can’t possibly see that getting abused at the reception:)

If you would like your own life sized Chris Holliday cut out please feel free to contact Marla, she will be distributing them.

I hear it’s the hottest gift you can get your lady friends for this years valentines day.

Cardboard Chris and Real Dan

Here are some Photo’s from the past 2 weeks:

With Dad	Here’s a photo of Ruby and dad. As you can see, both of us have plenty of hair. The white dot on the side of Ruby’s head is Velcro (TM) which helps hold Ruby’s shades onto her head. Usually Ruby and Dad will have time together after she has eaten. The astute among you may also see that I am sporting a pretty sweet mustache that was meant for Matt’s wedding.
Resting with soother	Here is Ruby sleeping. She is sporting a wool touque, and fleece vest. You can also see her holding her own soother with her left hand. This is a very advanced maneuver and probably means she has more of her mom than dad in her:)
Wearing shades	Here’s Ruby under a UV lamp.Evidently almost all premature babies are deficient in something called “belly ruben” (sp?).  This has something to do with jaundice.  This condition has since cleared up The white things on her eys are her shades.  I think they may be Oakley’s. You can also see the IV in her head, I’m told that the head is often the easiest place for the nurses to find a vein to put the IV in. The paste like substance on her face helps hold in a feeding tube that goes from nose to stomach.  The tube has since been removed.
Kent eating	This is our cat Kent. He has nothing to do with Ruby, he’s just on here because he is basically awesome in every way. In this photo you can see his vertical black stripes in his coat. I’m no vet but I believe these are racing strips and they help Kent to run fast.

Marla and Ruby

Ruby is now almost 2 weeks old.  Some people have said that they have a hard time picturing what 2 lbs and 11 ozs looks like.

Here is a picture of Marla and Ruby on day 2.  She really is the smallest person we’ve seen.

I’ve gone back to work after taking 4 days off to help Marla.

Marla’s daily schedule consists of making a lunch time trip to the hospitla to feed Ruby for noon and 3.

Together we return for Ruby’s 6pm feeding and we stay for atleast an hour.  Usually Marla will feed and then Ruby and dad have a half hour of story time, though Marla has been know to hog Ruby and cut into my time with her:)

My work has been great in helping us.  They’ve let me work what ever hours I need to inorder to see Ruby, though considering I can work from home as much as I want that isn’t much of a difference:)

As far as we know Ruby will be at the hospital for atleast the next 3 weeks though it is still too far into the future to set a date with any amount of confidence.

As most of you know, we had a bit of a surprise last week and we met our daughter Ruby Josephine Holliday 6 weeks earlier than planned. When we went in to a regular midwife appointment on Thursday, Jan 8 we ended up at the Foothills hospital for tests and told a few hours later that Marla had a serious condition called HELLP syndrome and that the baby needed to be delivered right away. The only cure for HELLP is delivery.

The next day, January 9, Marla was induced and delivered a healthy little 2 lb 11 ounce Ruby naturally at 4:17 pm after a pretty intense 5 hour labour. Though Ruby is small she is mighty and she keeps surprising the nurses and doctors with her progress. She is a feisty one and kicks a lot, one nurse even said she was going to be a soccer player without knowing that we both play so that made us quite proud:)

She started off in intensive care at Foothills  and was transferred to Peter Lougheed Centre late last week to a special care unit that is geared more towards getting the babies home and the parents prepared which is a much better environment for all of us. It does suck a bit because it is far from our house, but we are making it work. She has been gaining weight slowly and as of today she is now just over 3 lbs. She was also taken of IV today and out of the incubator so a big day all around for Ruby!

We are excited to see her grow a bit each day and love our visits where we get to cuddle her and read to her. She likes pulling her Daddy’s hair already, perhaps it is time to get it cut;)
We also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for there good wishes and prayers and support over the last few weeks. The support has been amazing and we can’t imagine how this time would be without it. We have the best family and friends and feel very blessed right now. We love you all!

Stay tuned for some pics which will come tomorrow! We will try to keep this fairly updated as we know you all want to know how Ruby is doing and see lots of pics.