You’Ve Got Baby
On a U.S. Navy ship in the peacock blue Mediterranean, petty officer Miguel DeJesus stewed on watch while his wife, Kacie, labored thousands of miles away to deliver their first baby.
Miguel knew Kacie was in labor. Her water broke while she wrote e-mail to him from the Coeur d’Alene library May 14.
“Your daughter is on the way,” her message announced.
He reacted as tradition dictates.
“I flipped out in a manner I suspect many fathers do,” he writes via computer from the USS Mahan, which is in the Mediterranean until August.
He flipped out again a few hours later when his new daughter Kalliyah’s tranquil face graced his computer screen thanks to Kootenai Medical Center’s Internet Nursery.
“She was the most beautiful little creature I had ever seen, and I knew from that moment I would do anything to make her life wonderful,” he writes.
“I am one of about five new fathers on board this ship, but I’m the only one who was able to see my child on the first day!”
KMC’s Mike Regan saw a hospital’s online nursery at a conference three years ago and wanted one for KMC. What better way to spotlight a hospital’s positive side than with cameos of newborn innocence?
It certainly worked for Moscow’s Gritman Medical Center, which launched its computer Stork Report last July. The American Hospital Association recently recognized Gritman as one of the 100 most-wired hospitals in the nation. Doctors there deliver 425 babies a year.
“Rarely a week goes by where we don’t see visits to the Stork Report from every continent on the planet,” says Kane Francetich, Gritman spokesman.
Gritman techies thought they’d originated the idea but quickly discovered that East Coast hospitals led the cyber-baby parade. Only three hospitals in Idaho offer the service now, and none does in Spokane.
“It’s a wonderful thing,” Kane says. “It’s by far the most popular page on our site. It accounts for about 15 percent of all our traffic.”
Some hospitals charge for the service, but Gritman and Kootenai don’t. Gritman nurses shoot several poses of each infant with a digital disk camera and let parents choose the best for the Web site.
Nurses upload the photos, add height, weight and parents’ names, then give the diskettes to the parents to keep.
Some parents decline the opportunity, worried about tossing their family information, brief as it is, into the Web’s global winds.
Gritman noted the concerns last week and decided to omit last names on its Stork Report.
“We spend so much time trying to protect the babies,” Kane says. “This is just one more thing. We don’t need to provide more information than needed.”
Kootenai’s Internet Nursery debuted May 9 with Jonathan Benjamin Hoffman, although his last name isn’t used. His hands are clutched together by one cheek as if he’s in rapture. He’s sleeping and his mouth is slightly open.
“I can understand how some people would have concerns,” says J. Benjamin’s mother, Peggy Hoffman. “We were just excited to show him off.”
Peggy and her husband, Jon, live in Rathdrum. Jon’s parents live in Boise, and they saw Jonathan Benjamin’s picture on the Web site just hours after his birth.
“They gave the address to all their friends. Everyone is looking at the Web site,” Peggy says.
If the Hoffmans’ reaction told Mike Regan the Internet Nursery was worth the work, the DeJesus experience a few days later turned him into a Web-baby evangelist. Kootenai delivers 1,400 babies a year.
“When you can get someone on ship in the Mediterranean to see his baby the same day she’s born, that’s a kick,” he says.
Miguel and Kacie married last year in Norfolk, Va., where Miguel is stationed. Three weeks before he left for a six-month stint in the Mediterranean, Kacie moved into an apartment in Coeur d’Alene near her family. She was six months pregnant when he left Feb. 18.
The newlyweds communicated every day by e-mail. Kacie’s May 14 message sent Miguel scrambling for a way to contact KMC. He’s an information systems technician and quickly found the hospital’s Web site and phone number.
He was less successful finding a telephone in Turkey, where the USS Mahan had docked. By the time he reached KMC, Kacie had delivered Kalliyah.
Kacie didn’t hesitate when nurses offered her a chance to post Kalliyah’s sweet face on the Internet.
“Besides her dad on a ship, we have family in New Jersey and California,” she says.
Miguel couldn’t stare at his new daughter enough.
“I now believe fully, 100 percent in love at first sight!” he writes. He won’t see her in person until August.
He downloaded Kalliyah’s picture and sent more than 300 e-mail announcements to friends. He printed a copy to tack to his bed and another to carry with him “in case I neglected to show someone or I met someone new in town,” he writes.
“Two thumbs up for the Internet Nursery!”
This sidebar appeared with the story: ONLINE
Kootenai Medical Center’s Internet Nursery can be found at www.kmc.org.
Gritman Medical Center’s Stork Report can be found at www.gritman.org.