OP here. Thanks all for sharing your war stories as well, which make me feel a bit better. The good news is I pooped again last night and it was a relatively normal and non-horrific experience. Hooray! The bad news is my doctor said I need to keep taking the iron pills because I am still anemic. Grr.

I'm the poster that went to the ER for this. After trying manually and doing an enema at home ... all with my husband on the other side of the door. My ob said go to the ER, my husband was also saying I'm taking you to the ER (I couldn't sit or stand up). At the ER they did a soap enema ... and I was embarrassed and nervous (luckily my husband "had" to leave to get our toddler from school) but the nurses were great. The enema was so effective, and it didn't hurt at all. I felt immediately better. The nurse did say I was the most blocked up of anyone she had ever seen. LOL. My husband knew of what was going on, but thankfully didn't have to witness the gory details.

I can totally relate to this! Have had major problems through both my pregnancies with constipation because my heartburn was so bad, took tums (which constipate you), then pooped rocks. Honestly, I would end up with a sweat mustache every time I went to the bathroom - it was a major event that took some serious time!

Even worse was pooping after delivery. I still had the left over constipation from pre-birth but now had stitches that were painful and that I was worried about popping. My mother gave me a succession of enemas before it finally worked itself out. Horrible memory!

This delivery, I will be sure to be absolutely dedicated to miralax and fiber in the weeks leading up to the expected due date!

Oh god this happened to me in my last pregnancy. Horrible. I say I gave birth twice during that pregnancy. I was afraid I was going to put myself into labor.

I don't take an extra iron supplement, just the regular pre-natal vitamin and for my both my pregnancies (I'm 7 months along in my second pregnancy) I was terribly constipated. I ate a few dried prunes every day and also a tablespoon of ground flax seed in my cereal every morning (or yogurt, or a bowl of soup - whatever). As long as I didn't skip these, I was ok. You can find ground flax in the flour section of Whole Foods (and also Safeway, I believe).