Asher's Birth Story

Asher Chiado Heinzen

4/7/16 5:41 pm

7 lbs 5 oz 20 in

Our little Asher Chiado Heinzen was born 10 days before his due date (April 17th) YAY!! The weekend before Asher was born, over General Conference, I was having some pretty consistent contractions. I got all excited maybe thinking it was the real deal, but they ended up sort of fading away. Then on Wednesday night (the night before he was born) I didn't sleep very well. I felt crampy and my stomach felt weird. I was trying not to read into it too much, but that morning I lost my mucous plug. I googled it and saw that it could mean you could go into labor soon, but also read that it could still be a couple days. After loosing my mucous plug I started having some contractions, but they didn't feel very different than the false ones I had had the week before.

We were supposed to go play with friends at the park that morning. I texted my friend and said we might not make it because I was having some contractions. But then they kind of slowed down so I decided we would go to the park after all. While we were at the park I was still having contractions. I wasn't really timing them because I was distracted, but they were getting a little more intense. We played at the park for an hour or two and then headed home for lunch. On the way home I realized my contractions were coming every 5 minutes or less and lasting about a minute. I started making Lila lunch and things were getting a little more painful. With Lila, my water broke, so we just headed to the hospital and I never had to time contractions and figure out if it was time to go to the hospital. My contractions weren't super painful. I could talk through them just fine. So I wasn't sure if I should go in or not. I didn't want to go to the hospital, only to be told it wasn't time, and have to go home. I called the midwives and told them what was going on. They told me to come in and get checked out. So I scrambled to find someone to come over and watch Lila. I put Lila down for her nap, Paul came home from work, and we headed to the midwives with our bags packed.

I saw Lani (my favorite midwife). I was so happy she was the midwife on call. She checked me and I was already dilated to a 6!!! She said my bag of waters was bulging and that baby's head was nice and low. Baby was coming that day! With Asher's birth I had debated back and forth whether or not I wanted to do a naturally birth with no epidural like I did with Lila. I loved the feeling of empowerment from giving birth to her naturally. For me, I loved the feeling of doing things how women have done it for thousands of years- what my body was meant to do. I also felt like I recovered really fast. But I would remember how hard it was and part of me just wanted to see how an epidural would be. So I kept going back and forth about it. I kind of kept it open to see how things turned out when I went into labor. When I found out I was already at a 6 and not in much pain I just decided I was going to go for it. I figured I was already half way there-- so I could make it the rest of the way.

We headed over to the hospital and got all checked in around 1:30pm. My contractions still weren't that intense. So I had some lunch and Paul and I hung out for a while. I think around 3:00pm things started getting more painful and I went in the tub and listened to my birthing music. I would squeeze Paul's hand really hard and just breathe through the contractions. I didn't like the tub this time as much as I did with Lila. So I got out and put on the TENS unit and just bounced on a birthing ball for the most of the rest of the time. With Lila's birth I felt really nervous and scared. Giving birth was unknown territory and I just didn't know how it would go. This time around I felt more confident in giving birth, but I felt SUPER emotional. I was just feeling how special and sacred giving birth was. I kept thinking of this sweet spirit that was joining out family and picturing Lila and him meeting for the first time. So I was an emotional, crying mess. Around 4:45pm I started feeling like I had the urge to push. Lani came and checked me and I was at a 9. My bag of waters was bulging, so they were waiting to see if they would break on their own. We waited another half and hour, but my water wasn't breaking. She decided to break my water to get me to a 10 so I could start pushing.

Once she broke my water it was push time! This was the part that I was hoping would be less painful than it was with Lila. Yeah-- it was just as painful. I started to think I couldn't do it. I even asked for an epidural (haha! even though I knew that was totally not possible!) Luckily I only had to push for about 10 minutes with a couple contractions. Our sweet Asher came at 5:41pm. There's nothing like the feeling of meeting your baby for the first time and finally getting to meet them and see their face. The first thing I noticed was his blonde hair! We just snuggled for a while and Paul cut the cord. We got settled in our room and enjoyed spending time with out sweet bundle.

Lila came the next afternoon to meet Asher. She was so sweet to him. She climbed up on the bed with me and wanted to give Asher kisses and poke his face all over. We let her hold him with some help and she did such a good job being gentle with him. She liked looking at him for 5-10 minutes and then realized all the fun things in the hospital room. She wanted to push all the buttons on the bed and drink out of my hospital water bottle with the straw haha! I had got a little present for Lila from Asher. So Asher "gave" Lila a little present to open. He gave her a little doctor kit. So we played doctor for a little bit and then Lila and Paul took off again.

We were able to leave the hospital and go home that night. So we only spent one night at the hospital. We just wanted to get home and be able to sleep in our own beds without nurses coming in all the time and checking things. And we really missed Lila and wanted to be home all together as a family. We brought little Asher home and have been loving him every since!