Let's just say my butthole will never be the same again.

This post is going to cross every sort of line available. Many of you will be horrified. I am horrified at the notion of typing it. But, I’m going to share in case anyone is as unlucky as I am and can someday find this information useful.

Background: I have never been very “regular”. I tend towards constipation. I never go every day, and when my diet is drastically changed (like when I don’t eat at my normal times) or when I’m out of my element (like when I went to camp in 7^th grade), it’s not at all unusual for me to go 5-9 days without pooping. Or, I will go a couple of times but the BMs will be very hard, pellet-y and will hurt coming out. When it’s like that, they offer no relief.

So when I read (over and over) that pregnancy often leads to constipation, I thought “Ha! I’m an old pro at that!” Little did I know.

At 21 weeks my constipation was so bad that my abdomen ached. When I moved, it hurt, because I was literally so full of shit. I called the doctor’s office and the nurse asked “Has it been longer than 3 days?” And I just laughed at her. She advised me to administer an enema and take Colace once daily as needed, but not longer than a week.

The enema offered some immediate relief, and the Colace smoothed things along a bit for a while. By 24 weeks it had gotten really bad again.

Last week, I went to the bathroom and strained for 10 minutes with no results. I work 9-5 in a big corporate box type of job. It’s hard enough for me to poop at work under normal circumstances (think about Marshall “reading a magazine” on HIMYM). I left the restroom and called the doctor’s office to ask if it was safe to do another enema. She said yes, do those as needed once I’ve gone 3 days without a BM. She advised me to stop the Colace and switch to Miralax and take that daily from now on.

I was on hold for 7 minutes before I spoke to the nurse and the entire time I felt like I was about to shit my pants. The urge to go was so strong. So I ran to the bathroom, one far away tucked in a corner in the basement where I could have the illusion of privacy.

I was on the toilet for 25 minutes. The whole time, I felt like I was just about to go, but nothing worked. I leaned back. I leaned forward. I pushed with all my might. I was sweating. I was almost crying. I even wrapped my finger in toilet paper and tried to manually stimulate myself. At this point, I felt a giant piece of fecal matter right at the end of the digestive tract, if you know what I mean. I thought the end was near so I strained, wiggled, and tried like hell to get it out.

Nothing I did worked.

I tried the digital stimulation again, and saw a substantial amount of blood on the toilet paper.

At about minute 23, when I saw the blood, I started panicking. Should I call a co-worker and ask her to send our nurse down here? I wanted to weep with humiliation just thinking about it. I had a meeting to get to and I couldn’t sit on the toilet whimpering all day.

So I did the only thing I could think of: I called my mom.

She gave me all the hints I had already tried. We were both kind of at a loss. Then she suggested this: “Be very careful because you’re pregnant, but if you put your fingers in your vagina, you can probably press against it and coax it out.” That, in combination with leaning back against the wall, finally did the trick.

Let’s just say I feel more than prepared to give birth after seeing the size of that turd. The end that was stuck was about three inches around. I understand now why it was so difficult to pass.

So I am now completely stocked up on Miralax, enemas, and of course some supplies to deal with the fallout: hemorrhoid cream and wipes.

For those of you who got all the way to the end: congratulations. I hope you never need to use this information.