Thursday, December 14, 2006

Taking care of business (or not)

I realize that it's bad enough when an infertile blogger gets pregnant and starts complaining about side effects of pregnancy and posting belly shots, but surely it must be worse when that blogger starts describing her shits in detail.

But so it is.

Dear readers, although I was still constipated by the Z0fran, I felt that it and I had reached a sort of detente: the Z0fran would let me nominally move my bowels once a day, and I would deal with the fact that said movements were somewhat painful and, frankly, stingy. And, over time, with the help of more and more C0lace, those craps were at least less injurious than they had been - sure, there would be some straining, but no longer did I feel as if I were giving birth from an inappropriate location. Until yesterday.

I don't know what the problem was. I try to eat a lot of fiber, even though I don't know if it makes a bit of difference when confronted with the awesome constipating power of Z0fran. It was true that I had experienced a bit of a nausea relapse and temporarily re-upped my dosage, so maybe that had something to do with my issue. Maybe that panini that I ate with local reader MSF a couple of days ago just had too much goddamned starch in it. Whatever the case, I found myself on the toilet yesterday. For forty-five minutes. As a turd got STUCK while I tried to get it out of my tortured ass.

Nothing worked. Not straining, not relaxing, not trying to stress myself out in the hopes that my good old nervous stomach would return. Not reading an entire issue of the alumni magazine, not praying, not cursing, not primally screaming, not even weeping (for, yes, a few tears were shed). I even resorted to more desperate measures that one can read about on hyperemesis message boards; no dice. I felt I might simply have to take up residence on the toilet while the concrete marbles and gravity battled it out. My husband would be home in just five short hours, and the dog had water in his dish. We could all live, right?

Finally, as I was considering whether dying was really such a bad alternative, I was saved by gas: a few bubbles percolated downward and shoved out the recalcitrant turd. I almost passed out from the effort. My poor, beleagured sphincter was so pummeled that every time I farted (and, hey, pregnant women fart) later on, it felt like a rubber band snapping against a sunburn.

Needless to say, to my normal evening cocktail of C0lace and various drugs, I added a double shot of Milk of Magnesia with a water chaser. Also, upon my release from the Abu Ghra1b of elimination, I immediately checked the baby's heartbeat with my rented doppler to make sure that he hadn't been rendered unconscious by the passing of a nearby piece of concrete.

Today was better, but I remain scarred by the experience. An elective c-section suddenly looks rather appealing.

7 comments:

Jane said...

Oh lord -- this was hilarious. I mean, I'm terribly sorry you had to endure this. But the thought of you trapped in the bathroom, marooned mid-poop is pretty funny.

Anyway, this too shall pass. (Ha!) At the end of your pregnancy, when presumably you won't need the Zfrn anymore, you'll get to enjoy the exact opposite problem. I'm currently enjoying lotsa loosey goosey bowel movements. Supposedly they're one way that your body starts to ready itself for labor: getting in the spirit of getting things OUT.

Have you tried castor or flax oil, by the way, or is that not recommended?

Hopeful Mother said...

Oh my.

I had to control myself from not laughing when thinking about your little guy in there, thinking "what in #$&#*$ is mom doing in here? Stop it!"

I'm glad things progressed, but man oh man, I'm sorry it was so hard. Literally.

Michelle Falkoff said...

a pox on the new coffeehouse! and the panini looked so promising...

a random thought--have you tried dried apricots? so tasty, and yet such a flatulent effect...could help speed things along. also, i don't know if you're taking a ton of vitamins, but the only time i had a serious problem in this area was when i was on very, very high doses of lots of vitamins--they could be contributing to slowing down the processes.

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry. I know that must have sucked. I had to laugh though. Hope it gets easier soon!

Meg said...

OHMYGOD, do I empathise or what?

Now for some assvice.

I have finally found a solution that works, for me anyway. More than five pieces of fresh fruit a day.

I am now roughly every second day. One step closer to regular...

Emmie said...

Oh my goodness--I feel so bad for you, yet your post was just brilliant comedy! Sorry if you can still hear me laughing from here; I really do hope the problem gets better.

Anonymous said...

Goddammit, MM! I had sworn off the entire blogosphere forever, and now I drop in and read this. A story about a stuck turd is exactly the sort of thing that would woo me back.