"Hello, big girl," nurse Sheril Sutton greeted one of her former charges, Cassie Lee Gambles. Then she exclaimed, "My gosh, she looks great."
"Oh my goodness . . . you're huge," nurse Mieke Fishler said when she got a look at the baby.Actually, most people would not find Cassie unusually large, at 8 pounds. She was a little pink bundle with a headband around her bald head, happily gurgling and sucking on a binky in her mother's arms.
But she is huge compared with her debut in the world. At birth she was so tiny that an engagement ring easily slipped up her leg, to the thigh.
Cassie, the six-month-old daughter of Scott and Mary Sutton of Soda Springs, Idaho, was returning to the newborn intensive care unit of LDS Hospital, Eighth Avenue and C Street, for a reunion with the medical professionals who helped her survive.
The occasion Tuesday was employee appreciation day, during which the hospital's 4,000 employees, medical staff members and volunteers were honored.
The girl was born at only 22 weeks' gestation. According to Jess Gomez of LDS Hospital, she is believed to be the youngest premature baby delivered in Utah who survived.
Dr. Greg Schwitzer, medical director for IHC urban hospitals along the Wasatch Front, said that at just 1 pound, 1 ounce, Cassie may have weighed less than any other live newborn in the state of Utah.
"That's pretty amazing," he added. "And when you think the baby went down to the weight of a Coke can . . . "
When she was born on Nov. 26, 1994, Cassie was not expected to live. Her parents had decided beforehand that the hospital should not take medically heroic steps to save her, because the odds against her survival were so high.
"We didn't want her to suffer at all," said Mary Gambles.
"We just wanted her to be in peace. It was a sad time."
Cassie's remarkable story began during a routine prenatal checkup that her mother had with a physician in Pocatello, Idaho. Mary Gambles was found to have a problem with her cervix that would interfere with the pregnancy.
The woman was told she could not carry the baby to full term. And her physician did not think the baby would survive such a premature delivery.
Mary Gambles was referred to LDS Hospital, where medication delayed the birth for five days. But on Nov. 26, time ran out and the doctors had to deliver the tiny infant, who was 18 weeks premature.
"We hadn't even decided on a name because we had resigned ourselves to the fact that she was probably not going to live," Mary Gambles said. She and her husband, Scott, chose the name Cassie as Mary as being wheeled toward the delivery area, said Gomez.
Even though she was only 10 inches long and weighed just over a pound when she was delivered, her vital signs were strong and her breathing wasn't labored.
"Fifteen minutes went by, then a half hour, and then we began to wonder, `Can she make it?' We began to think she could. We feel she was meant to be here," Mary Gambles said.
The baby spent her first four months in the LDS Hospital newborn intensive care unit, which Gomez described as a state-of-the-art center to care for premature babies.
At first, she lost weight, dropping to 310 grams - less than 11 ounces. But after Christmas she began to gain weight and strength, Gomez said.
"She got back to her birth weight and then just flew." The baby gained steadily from then on.
In March, she was discharged from the hospital. Although months after her birth, it was still a few weeks before she would have been born, if the pregnancy had been a usual one.
"She is a remarkable little girl," said Dr. David Coulter, newborn ICH medical director.
"She was a fighter determined to make it. I think everybody in the unit cared for her at one time or another."
"Everybody in the newborn ICU was so wonderful," Mary Gambles said. "They helped make a bad experience good. They saved my daughter."
H. Gary Pehrson, chief executive officer of LDS, Alta View and Cottonwood hospitals, commented, "That's what it's all about. This is but one example of the dedication and level of care provided by our employees and medical staff."
Mary Gambles added that the family is grateful for the care they received at the hospital.
"We spent a lot of time at the hospital and grew to love and appreciate the dedicated people who cared for our daughter. They were wonderful," she said.
Today Cassie is like any other baby - except that she has already proved her strong will to live.
"She's kind of a little fighter," said Scott Gambles, who is an accountant.
"She's feisty," said Mary Gambles. "She's real pleasant, though."
Ashley and Sarah, her sisters, are enthralled with the new addition, who no longer is on oxygen.
Ashley, 7, said she likes to hold her and that Cassie goes to sleep for her.
"She's cute. We like to kiss her and when we hold her we like to hug her," said Sarah, 5. "When she fusses and when she spits out her binky, we always have to find her binky."