Julie and Chad Jordison are expecting their first child in January. While many couples spend a lot of time debating where to deliver their babies, the choice was easy for the Jordisons.

"I knew right away I wanted to deliver at Auburn Regional Medical Center [ARMC]," Julie Jordison says. "There was definitely a sentimental factor. I was born there, and my mother and my aunts and an uncle on my mother's side of the family were born there. It's my home town hospital."

Jordison is a member of the Baer family that has been living in Auburn for more than 50 years. During World War II, Florence Baer delivered her first child at the hospital, then known as Auburn General Hospital, while her husband, Gottlieb, was in the South Pacific fighting for his country. He didn't see his first child until she was 21 months old. Over the years, the Baers delivered five more children at the hospital.

One of the six Baer children, Jeanette Wiegand, is Jordison's mom. Another is Christine Williams, who was not only born at ARMC, but also worked at the hospital as a candy striper as a teenager, in the kitchen while she went to college and as a nurse after her graduation. Today, she's the childbirth education coordinator and a childbirth educator at ARMC's Family Birth Center.

"The hospital really means something special to my family and has always been an important part of our lives," Williams says. "Many family members were delivered there. We've also gone to ARMC when family members needed stitches to close a deep cut, cardiac care or emergency services for a serious infection."

The Jordisons are looking forward to creating more memories when their child becomes the first third-generation member of the Baer family to be born at the hospital.

"I feel completely confident about delivering at ARMC," Jordison says. "I know it's a good place for my baby to be born."

Please call 253-333-2522 to receive our new childbirth education brochure for 2008.

202 North Division St., Auburn, WA 98001 (253) 833-7711, FAX: (253) 939-2376