Just before midnight on March 22, Corban Ayala was squirming on a piece of pastel green construction paper spread over the mat in his bassinet. Bedecked in his first white T-shirt and diapers, his feet still dotted with black patches of ink from having his footprints taken, Corban could have been wondering any number of things.

Having been on this planet for a little over two hours, and having seen nothing outside of the obstetrics department of Southeast Missouri Hospital, Corban could have been wondering why his bassinet had been positioned under a four-legged spider made of PVC piping. He may have been curious as to why the solitary glass eye of the camera embedded in the belly of this spider was hovering over him, or why a strange woman had one hand on his head, gently twisting it to face the camera, while the other hand groped for the shutter button.

What no one could make Corban understand as the flash bulb ignited is that sitting at a computer almost 7,000 miles away, his father was anxious to meet him.

Twelve hours later, Corban's mother, Sonja, was on a cell phone talking to her U.S.-Marine husband, Stephen, who is stationed in Iraq. The two talked about their newest son, and the picture he'd been pulling up on Babies Online, an Internet gallery of newborns posted on Southeast Missouri Hospital's Web site.

"All he could talk about was his coal black hair, his black eyes, and how much he looked like Ethan," said Sonja, who is currently staying with her grandmother in Jackson while Stephen is overseas. Stephen was stationed in Japan when Ethan was born 18 months ago. His first glimpse of that son came courtesy of Babies Online as well.

On any given day, the mug shots of almost 400 babies can be found on Babies Online at www.southeastmissourihospital.com/babies and St. Francis Medical Center's Baby Gallery at www.sfmc.net/services/babyGallery.cfm.

In December 2000, Southeast Missouri Hospital bought a digital Kodak camera and started taking pictures of its newborn babies to post on the Web. Two years later, St. Francis Medical Center set up its online gallery. Webmaster Joni Adams at Southeast Missouri Hospital said hospitals performing this service independently are rare.

"About 95 percent of the babies born here go online," said Adams. But unless there are special circumstances -- like in the Ayalas' case -- most of them don't go online until the next day. Every day after lunch, Adams collects the consent forms and the memory cards containing pictures of the babies born over the past 24 hours from obstetrics and brings them down to her office, where she uploads them onto the Web. The nurses take these pictures about two hours after each child is born.

"It's the next best thing to being there," Adams said. "If you were in the room, that's what you would see."

Snapping the shot

Tara Huffman, desktop publisher for St. Francis Medical Center, snaps the shot on the day the baby goes home. She'll stand over the bassinet, or if the baby's fussy, take it while the baby is in its mother's arms with a blanket as a backdrop. She then heads back to her office where she uploads the pictures. St. Francis provides this service in conjunction with its Baby's Name in Lights program, which posts the newborn's name and a special message on an electric billboard on William Street next to the medical center.

The days of cheap "it's-a-boy" cigars and pink window signs appear to have been lost in this tidal wave of technology. Both hospitals report that the online photos are a raving hit among Web surfers.

Huffman said that the St. Francis Baby Gallery, which posts two months worth of baby photos at a time, tallied 15,000 hits -- 3,000 of them new -- in January alone.

Adams said that out of the top 20 most viewed pages on Southeast's Web site the Babies Online directory was No. 2, behind only the hospital's main page. Southeast posts images of the babies born in the last three months, and half of the top 20 were individual babies' pages and baby folders that made the list by themselves. One baby's picture had been viewed 971 times.

All these hits suggest that viewers may not be restricted to family and friends. In fact, Adams said she knows of several people who just like to look at the pictures.

"It's almost like trading cards," Adams said. "Who can pass up a cute baby? It makes you smile."

She said it's also a good source for baby name ideas.

Adams said she thinks the appeal of this service to parents is helped by the attention to security. Neither hospital publishes the last names of the baby or parents, nor do they release addresses, phone numbers or other personal information. Just the baby's first and middle name, mother and father's first name, date of birth, length and weight.

Back in Jackson with her newborn, Sonja has spoken with her in-laws in Texas and knows they've seen Corban's picture at least a dozen times. Stephen is not due back for another six months, and when he returns she hopes Corban won't be afraid of him.

Unfortunately, the U.S. Marine Corps doesn't have Soldiers Online, so Sonja has done the next best thing.

About every other day, while older sons Landon and Maclane are in school, Sonja puts Corban in his car safety seat and props him up in front of the TV in his great-grandma's family room. From there, he and Ethan watch home movies of Stephen recorded when the family was back home in Cherry Point, N.C. These aren't videos of Christmas or any other special occasion, just the family cleaning, eating and living as a whole. Through this virtual interaction, Sonja hopes Corban will feel like part of that whole.

trehagen@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 137