Once more unto the breach

I got to visit my favorite alley again today.

See, for my profession, there are two base credentialing exams: the CRT and the RRT.  I took the CRT back in January, but in order for me to actually graduate in May, I had to take my RRT exam today.  Well, today and yesterday, to be specific.  I was lazy and didn't feel like cramming the entire thing into one day.

Anyway, this time I had someone drop me off so I didn't have to venture passed the vagrants at the bus station, which was nice.  Instead, I got dropped off by an elementary school playground that looks ridiculously out of place in the area.  This section of town isn't horrible, but it's not the nicest.  In fact, there's a large-scale urban renewal project going on all over the city.  Which will make it lovely in about ten years, but for now it's still a mess of broken concrete and abandoned buildings.  And this shiny, brand-new elementary school playground filled with shiny, brand-new playground paraphernalia, all of which was being completely ignored by the schoolchildren in favor of huddling by the fence trying to shield their iPods and cell phones from the monitors.

Anyway, after wandering passed the children, I found myself facing the alley once again.

I took pictures this time, because I felt like some of y'all didn't quite believe me last time.   Here's some of the poorly-executed graffiti:

And the door, which has since been marked, to an extent:

I can't really say much about the tests themselves - other than I think our professors were intentionally giving us practice tests that were harder than the real thing.  I mean, they scared the bejeesus out of us when we were preparing for them, and they wasn't nearly as bad as I thought they were going to be. And all that matters is:

Erin the Great, RRT.  I kinda like the sound of that.

The elephant in the room

It has been over a month since I graced this site with my presence.  Over a month.  I mean, I did so good in January with the posting, and then I just disappeared.  Poof.

See, I kept sitting down to write something, ANYTHING, but I kept getting interrupted by the stupid elephant.

This stupid elephant has been stomping around my room, demanding my attention.  I've been doing my level best to ignore it, but it just won't leave me alone.

Cleaning, writing, driving, no matter what I do, the elephant is there.  I tried hiring some ivory hunters to get rid of it for me, but they informed me that 1) ivory hunting is technically illegal and 2) this is an untusked elephant, so they couldn't really help me anyway.  I brought in a bunch of mice, hoping that they would scare it off, but no such luck.  And the mice were chased off  by the ancient cat that lives in our garage, anyway.

So really, the only way to make the elephant go away is to talk.  To tell y'all that I found out that I was pregnant at the beginning of February.  I was... I don't know what I was.  Terrified?  Excited?  Stunned?  A little of each, I think.  I couldn't concentrate for anything, and was absolutely EXHAUSTED all the time.  I was getting used to the idea of being somebody's mother. 

I went to my doctor's appointment and had an ultrasound.  I got to see my baby.  Or what would become my baby.  The doctor took some measurements, and announced that my baby was 5 weeks, 5 days old.  I was supposed to be 9 weeks, 6 days.

The doctor had me come back a week later to be sure, but there was no change.  My baby had stopped developing. 

To say that I was devastated is an understatement.  I felt every horrible feeling imaginable.  I felt angry and depressed and upset and betrayed by my own body.  I didn't want to do anything but lay on my bed and cry for hours. 

A few days later, I was scheduled for the surgery that removed the 'products of conception' from my body.  The procedure itself was fairly quick, and I spent the following days in a haze of painkillers and sleep.  My pregnancy symptoms gradually started going away.  I wasn't sad to see the last of the heartburn and gas, but I kinda miss the ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

So that's my elephant.  That's why I couldn't post anything.  I didn't want to talk about it.  But I have to talk about it.  I have to put it out there, because this was a real and terrible thing that happened to me.  It happens to a lot of people.  And it's universally devastating.  But I will go on.  I will wake up in the morning, and I won't cry.  I'll be able to be happy for other women when they have their babies, and God willing, I'll be able to have one of my own someday.  And the first thing I'll buy him (or her) is a stuffed elephant.  To remind us all that life goes on.