After some debate I decided to go ahead and start a series of posts on the ugly truth of pregnancy. I know it may be "too much information," hence the name the TMI files but pregnancy is not all pretty and honestly I hate how much some people sugarcoat it. So, if you would rather not hear some of the ugly truth about my pregnancy and bodily functions I suggest you skip this post... for others- read on.
To date perhaps the worst experience of my pregnancy was a particularly bad constipation day. Constipation during pregnancy is rather common. Your body produces hormones that slow the digestive tract, which causes waste to pass through much slower and more of the liquid to drain out resulting in large, hard, and difficult to pass poops. Gross- I know but I'm just being real and telling it as it is. As you get late into pregnancy the distance between the stomach, which is now up in your chest since the baby pushes all your organs into tight spaces, and the anus is pretty long so it feels as it if it takes even longer for things to make their exit... giving all the waste and poop even more time to sit inside and build up. I found myself in this situation after a few days without a proper bowel movement and I knew there was lots built up inside that didn't want to make it's way out. I was backed up and it was starting to give me pains.
What made this particular day that much worse is that it was a work day. I'm one of those people that feels odd about needing to take a dump while at work. Some people don't care... I do. To make it that much more difficult- my office has the worst bathroom set up EVER. There is one tiny bathroom; and I need to go through my boss's office to reach it. Yeap, that's right- there is one toilet and it's next to my boss's office. I swear the walls are thin and I feel that you can hear what's going on in the other room- so if he has a client I can hear everything being said which makes me think they can hear what is going on inside the toilet. So it's obvious that if you are in the bathroom for a minute it's just a pee break- anything more and everyone knows what's going on inside. And finally there's the risk of embarrassment if any noises or smells come from the bathroom. Again some people might not care about all this, but it gives me anxiety and just makes things so much worse on me and my " ability to do my business" while at work.
So on this particular day, I started to feel early on that I needed to poop but when I got to the toilet I just couldn't squeeze out more than some rabbit pellets. Mind you I'm also trying to go about my business as quickly and quietly as possible because of the stress knowing that someone is on the other side of the wall and no doubt knows what's going on in the bathroom. The result of which was me giving up on my attempt and heading back to my desk only to try again in an hour or two. You can imagine how difficult it was to focus on work and how time seems to stop making the day drag. I also got that heavy & full feeling and it was difficult to sit still or comfortably at my desk. But no matter how many bathroom attempts I made I just couldn't get it out. Perhaps if I got over my pride, groaned and strained and sat on the toilet for 20 minutes I could have gotten it out but I resorted to toughing out the day and waiting to get home; much like I had done on other days.
But when I got home it wasn't any easier. I was no longer worried about how long I sat on the toilet or any noises that might come out. Yet no matter how much I pushed and strained it did no good. I began to worry that I'll either push so hard I get hemorrhoids (another common pregnancy "symptom" from situations like this) or that I'll rip my asshole. I'm not even kidding I really wondered how I was going to get what felt like a baseball sized shit through the tight opening. And then as if I needed anything else to worry about it made me think of the upcoming childbirth and how it will be a similar situation only with a baby head and a different but equally small opening. That just stressed me out more and I took another break. I made a number more bathroom attempts without any luck.
So what do you do next in a situation like this? What else- you Google it and see what info you can find. What I found out from various posts, message boards, and sites is that at this point an enema wasn't going to help me as it sees I had fecal impactment. I also learned that if I leave the poop there it'll just get harder and worse and lead to a trip to the emergency room. And if that happens how will doctors deal with it? Well they can either try an enema, but it'll probably do no good at this point, so they will Vaseline your asshole and go in manually to break apart the poop into smaller pieces and pull them out of your ass. I'm not even kidding- that is how they handle it. And that is a good outcome because if you leave the waste in there for too long you run the risk of other complications. For me the embarrassing idea of going to the doctor to have shit pulled from my ass was enough motivation do whatever I could to avoid the ER and get the poop out ASAP.
So at this point it seemed that I might need to get a pair of gloves, some Vaseline, and go in to break off pieces and pull them out. GROSS. I know and so TMI. I did think of one more option. OK so it might not be much better than option one but still something that ran through my mind; the reason I couldn't get anything out is because the poop had grown large, hardened, and impacted and my anus was just too tense and tight to let it through. So another option was to find a way to relax and stretch the sphincter. When else do people do that? During anal sex. No- don't jump ahead and think that my bf and I had anal sex to get the poop out. I highly doubt he would have gone for it anyway. I can't imagine anyone agreeing to a proposition like "I'm constipated and full of shit- you want to have anal to help get it out?" working on anyone. Still I have heard that anal is good for constipation and if the opening was stretched more open and relaxed it's plausible that the poop would come out. So anal play seemed like option two.
My choices came down to a lubed finger up the butt to pull out the poop, a sex toy up the ass to widen the exit, or a combination of the two. I'm not telling you which option I went with but, although not a proud moment, it worked. Since then I've also done my best to eat small meals and make sure waste passes through my system rather than letting it build. More fluids, fruit, and fiber is a good option too but I had already been doing that. Also my work bathroom anxiety eased up a bit- I stopped caring if I was in the bathroom for long or that co-workers and clients might know is going on in there. Better that then letting anxiety inhibit me from taking a poop when I was able to do so rather than let it get to fecal impaction again. I finally started my maternity leave so the work toilet is a non-issue now. So there you have it- the first of my "too much in formation" posts. I know there will be a few more; not sure if anyone will continue to read my blog after but it's a risk I'll take.
