No news sucks, and my news sucks more

After an agonizing day of waiting to hear from the doctor’s office on Monday, they finally called me at 5:30 and went through this little circus with the pharmacy because it was suddenly URGENT that I start taking some hormones. Everything was normal in the blood tests except progesterone, so I have to take supplements to keep my body from deciding that I’m not pregnant anymore. This happened with Natalie, too – same sucky song, second sucky verse. This time, I don’t feel like it is working, though. I feel a little increase in the hormonal side effects, but not much, and there is some cramping. Do we really have to talk about this today? I’d rather talk about something else. If you’ve ever taken progesterone, then you know what I’m saying here. If not, then you can just go enjoy your hormonally balanced life.

I don’t have any music, books, or scriptures today. There is no room in here for that stuff right now. I have been reading this week’s issue of TIME magazine, and I was really taken off guard by an article about women becoming suicide bombers. This is becoming a serious issue, apparently, and I am so thankful to live in a world where my husband isn’t going to shame me into blowing myself up and killing people to save his honor. Seriously. It seems that after going deeper into the demographics, most of the women are wives who have been accused of adultery or another crime or unmarried young women who have been told that they were not good enough to marry. Their husbands or families then “give them the option” of becoming bombers to spare their families shame or to avoid prison or stoning. And the reward? They are told they will be the most beautiful of the 72 virgins that await a male martyr in heaven. Nice. The other disturbing statistic is that on average, the women who take this track are better educated, older, and hold a higher social status than the men. The article included a picture of a mother dressed in her bomb gear kissing her toddler son goodbye- with a smile on her face. It was obviously a posed picture, and the background was some propaganda-style posters. This picture has been haunting me. What could drive a mother to leave her children for this fate? I have to believe that that mother had the same love for her children that I do for mine, and I just can’t imagine the forces working in her life to bring it to that end.