 Patients at MidMichigan Medical Center Gratiot will soon have a more comfortable, state-of-the-art and family-centered place to give birth. Construction has begun on a new maternity center in the Patient Tower, slated to open early in 2019. The new unit will have three triage rooms and nine large private birthing suites where moms, babies, and their support partners can room together throughout their hospital stay. Part of the process was interviewing women and asking them questions like, what would you like to see in a new labor and delivery unit? So our new unit coming up is going to incorporate a lot of those things that were put on the wish list, a lot of state-of-the-art kind of things that are being put in to make this really a center of excellence for delivering a baby. Those features include a state-of-the-art operating room, large walk-in tubs for pain relief during labor, in-room refrigerators and a nursery with a paramount security system. Womens are really going to, like, the atmosphere that they're going to be coming into. It's going to be more of a home-like environment. And we are going to have somebody there to greet them and really explain to them the process of how their delivery is going to go. In addition to being a physician for 20 years, I've also had the opportunity to be a mother. I've had four deliveries in four different hospitals, actually, including Grashett Hospital. So I have a little bit more insight in what makes a patient more comfortable in a unit. That was always in my input. Most of our staff have been patients here, delivering most all of our babies here. The staff being patients here themselves, it really gives them insight to how the flow of the unit works and how they see the unit as a patient and not just a caregiver. Doctors also had the chance to get in on the demolition fun.