Tiny Andrew Michael Callahan seems destined for a career in geography.

The son of two UD Geographic Information Systems (GIS) specialists, Andrew was born prematurely in San Diego this summer when he and his parents were geographically separated from their family and friends back on the East Coast.

The Callahans' tale is a classic--rich with the kindness of strangers, the love of family and the support of an employer.

Here is their story:

John and Tina Callahan met when he was her teaching assistant in an undergraduate geography class at UD. Since then, they have been inseparable. They worked together as graduate students in UD's Department of Geography and as remote sensing scientists at Earth Satellite Corporation in Washington, D.C., before marrying and returning to the Newark campus, where John is the primary GIS coordinator for the campus and Tina, AS '97, teaches and is a consultant on the uses of GIS.

They are pursuing their graduate degrees together at UD and have co-taught some courses. When they go to professional conferences, they give joint presentations. The best of friends, they have been married for three years.

At the end of June, the couple attended the Pennsylvania GIS conference together in Harrisburg, Pa., where they gave a joint presentation on the Delaware DataMIL, a statewide Internet mapping project. Immediately afterward, they flew to San Diego for the annual Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc. (ESRI) conference to give two joint presentations on their work. ESRI is generally acknowledged as the world leader in GIS technology with more than a million users of its software in 229 countries, according to Dick Sacher, manager of Research & Data Management Services in IT User Services, who is the Callahans' immediate supervisor.

Although Tina was seven months pregnant, she was in perfect health and several doctors in the local practice who were caring for her urged her to attend the conference. She experienced what seemed like a little indigestion on the way to the airport and during the flight to California but thought little of it.

Discomfort continued to plague her during the conference, however, becoming especially intense whenever she ate. By cutting back on her food, she felt better and was able to attend the conference during the day. But, she felt increasingly ill as the week progressed.

The couple hoped Tina could stay well enough to fly home as scheduled after the conference on Saturday morning.

But, by 2 a.m. on Friday, July 11, the pain was so intense that they called their doctor in Delaware, who urged them to go immediately to the nearest emergency room. They arrived at Scripps Mercy Hospital at 3 a.m., and Tina was immediately admitted.

By 9 a.m., after a multitude of tests, the Callahans learned that Tina was suffering from pre-eclampsia--the leading cause globally of maternal and infant illness and death.

The tests continued and the news got worse: Tina had HELLP (for hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelet count), an extremely severe and life-threatening complication of pre-eclampsia. HELLP syndrome may manifest itself alone or in association with pre-eclampsia and occurs in approximately 0.2 to 0.6 percent of all pregnancies.

"HELLP is hypertension squared," Amy Johnson, UD assistant professor of nursing and a neonatal specialist, explains. "It's very dangerous for both the mother and the baby."

With each succeeding test, Tina's platelet level dropped and her liver enzymes were elevating. Her chances of survival were cut in half. By noon, there was only one alternative: She needed to deliver the baby ASAP.

"The doctors said, 'You're having your baby, and you're having it here,'" she recalls.

While Tina was groggy from the morphine she was receiving for pain, John remembers being overcome by "the most frightening feeling in my life" as he sat alone in the hospital, not knowing if his wife and baby would live or die.

Then, a team of obstetricians, pediatricians, nurses and anesthesiologists began entering the room. Because of the severity of her condition, Tina was generally anesthetized for the Caesarean delivery. Only 20 minutes into the surgery, at 1:30 pm PST, the Callahans' 3-pound son was born and whisked away in a rolling incubator to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) of the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) Medical Center, just down the street.

The primary danger for premature babies, they learned, is that the infants' lungs are not fully developed and don't automatically inflate on their own. They may forget to breathe at times, such as during sleep or after a feeding. Assured that the baby, whom they named Andrew Michael by Sunday afternoon, was getting the best possible care, John stayed in the hospital with Tia and took care of paperwork, phone calls home, checking out and in of hotels, canceling their flight home and hundreds of other details. Less than 8 hours after the delivery, Vern Svatos, employed at UD's Water Resources Agency, who was also in town for the ESRI conference, and his wife were the first to visit and offer support.

Tina's mother arrived on Saturday, and she and John shuttled back and forth between the two hospitals.

When Tina was released on Monday, the couple immediately went to see their son for the first time together. When Tina saw her tiny son hooked up to so many wires and machines, she says she was overcome with guilt.

"It was my body that got sick and couldn't carry him," she says. "I couldn't believe I had caused my baby so much pain."

With the aid of a hospital social worker and their case manager, the Callahans began investigating ways of getting Andrew home.

Their insurance company, however, ruled that since Andrew was already receiving excellent medical care in San Diego, there was no reason to move him. The family now faced a whole new set of problems.

"San Diego is incredibly expensive," John says. "There was nowhere close we would be able to afford and, if we stayed further away, we would have the added expense of a rental car."

The hospital social worker came to their rescue, arranging for them to stay at the hospital's Bannister Family House, a type of Ronald McDonald House for the families of patients who live more than 65 miles away from the hospital. There was a short waiting list for a room but things resolved themselves, and the Callahans were able to move in right away.

While they could have had the room for free, the couple insisted on paying a nightly fee. They said they felt especially grateful that their accommodations were within walking distance of the hospital and that they were allowed to see Andrew around the clock.

"It also made us realize how much worse our situation could have been," Tina says. "There were people in the Bannister Family House waiting for transplants, the parents of children who were dying. We felt very fortunate."

Being at a teaching hospital also was a plus, the Callahans said. There were plenty of doctors and residents to explain things, and nurses and nurse-trainees lent emotional and physical support.

During their first full week of confinement, joining Tina's mother in San Diego were Tina's brother and John's parents to support the family and meet Andrew for the first time. Also that week, other UD employees from Information Technologies, including the Callahans' director Leila Lyons, were in San Diego for another conference, which featured University President David P. Roselle as keynote speaker. Some members of the UD group were able to visit the new family, and many of them toasted Andrew's birth at a dinner with Roselle.

A short while later, John says he was surprised to receive a phone call from Roselle relaying the news that MBNA had offered to send a plane to transport the family home. The Callahans approached the hospital staff and were disappointed to learn Andrew could only be released at that point if travel were on an official medically equipped transport plane accompanied by a nurse or doctor and respiratory therapist.

"It was very upsetting to have to turn down such a generous offer," John said, "but, amazingly, President Roselle said to keep him informed and that MBNA might still help when Andrew was allowed to leave."

Meantime, IT connections, both electronic and personal, were at work to make it possible for John to resume contact with family, friends and colleagues across country.

Lyons contacted colleague Tony Wood, director of Academic Computing Services at the University of California at San Diego, and together with UCSD business manager Wade Blomgren, arranged to give John an account on that university network.

"It was such a great system," John says. "They had wireless capability throughout most of the campus. I had a laptop and wireless card that I could use outside, in the local Subway shop, in the libraries, you name it."

Tina spent most of her time at the hospital watching as Andrew's condition improved and he began to pass a number of tests, including breathing on his own, maintaining his own body temperature, gaining weight and bottle feeding.

In addition, to be able to fly home, Andrew would need to pass an oxygen test, as commercial airliners have lower levels of oxygen than is present at ground level. Even so, hospital staff members were not thrilled with the thought of such a tiny baby being exposed to recycled airplane air and the large crowds the Callahans would encounter on the plane and in the airports.

During this time, both sets of extended families pitched in back home to mow the Callahans' yard, organize their bills and turn a storage room into a nursery--something John and Tina had planned to do after the conference. The Callahans also received numerous care packages from home, including three Code of the Web T-shirts from the IT staff. In fact, by the time they were ready to come home, the family had accumulated too much luggage to take on a commercial flight, including three diaper bags full of gifts.

As soon as the hospital staff mentioned the word "discharge," John contacted Roselle, who called David Spartin, senior vice chairman of MBNA. Spartin talked to Charles Cawley, chief executive officer of the MBNA Corp. and a member of UD's Board of Trustees, and Cawley authorized use of one of the company planes to fly the family home. Roselle also consulted with the College of Health and Nursing Sciences and was thrilled to find a nurse who was a neonatal specialist and was willing to fly out on the plane and fly back with the Callahans.

Amy Johnson, who has been a NICU nurse for 15 years and continues to work in the special care infant nursery one day a week at Christiana Care, was on vacation when she got the call. She agreed to the trip and rearranged her hospital work schedule so she could go.

"I got a complete medical history on the baby so I could go to the hospital and gather whatever emergency medical supplies he might need," Johnson says.

"I also got directions to the hangar and the flight times. I knew everything except the names of the people I was going to meet!"

Both Johnson and the Callahans say they were overwhelmed by the generosity of MBNA and the professionalism of the pilots who went out of their way to serve them. The day of their return to Delaware was Friday, Aug 15, exactly five weeks after Andrew was born. The ability to fly in a private jet bypassed many potential problems. For example, it was the day after North America's biggest blackout and many commercial flights were backed up, canceled or delayed and President Bush and Air Force One were in San Diego. The flight home was even more of a blessing for the Callahans since Aug 15 was Tina's 30 birthday.!

"The pilots had a meal catered for us," John said, "which was great since we hadn't had time that day to eat. They took care of the baggage for us and even returned the rental car. It was amazing!"

Roselle met Johnson at the hangar prior to her trip and, with Susan Foster, UD vice president for information technologies, welcomed the Callahans home when they landed.

"They could see their families and Dr. Roselle waiting for them when the plane arrived," Johnson says, "and it was just overwhelming--Tina was in tears, and John was close to it--They were just so glad to be home."

During the flight home, the Callahans said Johnson covered important ground on the care of a premature baby. She was helpful with feeding schedules and other practical suggestions, and she presented them with a blue-and-gold diaper bag. The pilots also told Johnson to make full use of the plane's telephone system, which she did to arrange a Saturday appointment for the Callahans with their Delaware pediatrician and to set up other appointments.

Johnson advised the couple that Delaware requires a heart rate and respiratory monitor for all babies born before 34 weeks. California, however, does not, and so Andrew was sent home without one. The Callahans' obtained a monitor from Delaware's Visiting Nurse association later that week. "When we look back on this experience and see all the people and all the support we had--all the large and small things that were done for us--we just don't know what to say," John says. "To have that many people doing whatever they could was amazing. We felt so cared for."

"It's almost too much to take in," Tina says. "It was the greatest thing. All the e-mails and cards, all the caring nurses and the other parents at the hospital who expressed concern, the people at the Bannister House and at MBNA and President Roselle whose concern was so sincere. We have so many people to thank."

As the Callahans recall their story, little Andrew sleeps soundly in his mother's arms, blissfully unaware that he has caused so many people to rise to their best.

Jim Purcell, Tina's brother and manager of development for the Southern Delaware Office of the American Red Cross of the Delaware Peninsula, wrote Roselle after the return.

"I would like to personally thank you for your help in getting my sister and new nephew home last week," he wrote. "The last six weeks have been quite challenging for my family, and it's nice to know we have such a caring extended family at the University of Delaware and MBNA. Your caring and generous gesture is testament to what is good in our world today.

"We need more leaders like you who care not only about their employees but about humanity in general," Purcell continued. "I will never forget your generosity and caring efforts as long as I live. I am proud to be an alumnus of the University of Delaware.

"I am also proud of the special efforts made by MBNA. We are so fortunate to have such an inspirational and caring institution invest the time, resources and people in the University and the Delaware community," he wrote.

Roselle responded: "I was pleased that we were afforded the opportunity to be of assistance to the Callahan family and, as you alluded, it was the good people of MBNA who provided that opportunity. We are also indebted to Amy Johnson, the neonatal nurse, for having made the round trip to San Diego.

"All of us at the University are very fortunate to have such good friends," Roselle said.

--Beth Thomas