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"      Welcome to the latest installment of (in) Fertility Friday Five. Let&amp;#039;s get right to it...  1 Redbook Reader Cheshire5 asked:   I think a lot of people don&amp;#039;t realize how painful it is to try to get pregnant and it not happen. I&amp;#039;ve grown increasingly upset each month that goes by that I don&amp;#039;t get pregnant and watching children being mistreated and abused and thinking about how people can have such beautiful babies and hurt them. Do you ever get so angry about these cases and wonder why it&amp;#039;s not happening for you knowing you would be a wonderful mother and never do such awful things? I think about it all the time and try not to but I&amp;#039;m just curious if I&amp;#039;m the only one. I used to be friends with a girl that had a little girl and mistreated her horribly and had such an easy time getting pregnant a 2nd time so easily and despising her for it. I just want to know if I&amp;#039;m the only one who feels this way or am I just a horrible person?  It can definitely make the pain magnified, not having a child of our own, when we see a situation where a child is being mistreated or taken for granted. Just this past week, Mook was out with a friend and when he came home I could tell he was upset. After a while he told me that he had been sitting at a booth behind a young woman who was complaining about being pregnant for the third time-and how she &amp;quot;couldn&amp;#039;t deal with the brats&amp;quot; she had. He said he had a hard time tuning her out and said when he got in the car to drive home he was so mad that she didn&amp;#039;t know how lucky she was. I do my best (and that is really hard some days) to take my faith into consideration when I get angry about these situations--and think more about the children born into these situations, than I do about the sometimes &amp;quot;unfit&amp;quot; parents. So no, you are not a horrible person--as some other readers commented, it is all a part of human emotion-and it can become overwhelming when we know much we as parents, would care for and appreciate a child.2 Redbook Reader JL asked:  How does my husband get his work-up started? Did your OB/GYN refer Mook to someone for sample analysis? Or do husbands need to go to their own GPs and get a referral?   For our situation, our OBGYN was able to give us a referal. When I called the urologist for the appointment, they actually didnt even ask for the refferal. I think it all depends on the office, and their procedures. I would definitely ask your OBGYN for a refferal as part of your initial infertility workup, since a semen analysis is one of the easiest test to perform, as far as diagnostics. However, if you ask Mook he will say &amp;quot;it&amp;#039;s not easy as far as my pride!&amp;quot; This can be a very delicate situation for your husband, but just remind him he&amp;#039;s welcome to lay back and stick his feet in stirrups any day. That will usually dull the pride issues=) But really, it should not be a difficult procedure to request. If you do run into any problems, let me know and I&amp;#039;ll help you brainstorm some more!3 Redbook Reader JL also asked:  Should we skip OB/GYN involvement and go straight to an RE? I like and trust my OB/GYN, but she does not appear to have any special letters that would indicate she has training in treating or diagnosing infertility. However, the website for her practice states that the office can do an &amp;quot;initial infertility workup.&amp;quot;  I remember having to make the decision between going to a big university or a smaller one--and my decision came down to where I would get the student/teacher interaction. I say this because you mention how much you like and trust your OBGYN--and the doctor/patient relationship is very important, in my opinion. If you feel that you can approach her at this point to express your concern about not being pregnant, I would ask her for exactly what her practice offers: the initial infertility workup. You may find that combined with your husband&amp;#039;s semen analysis results and your workup (which usually includes blood work to test your hormones, and possibly an HSG) her practice may be able to do an IUI procedure for you. In our experience, it was less expensive to do our IUI through our OBGYN. Since an RE is a specialist, depending on your insurance, you will most likely have higher costs. I have a feeling that after the initial workup, if she feels you need to be referred to an RE, she will provide that for you. So I do recommend that you start with her, and if you don&amp;#039;t feel like you are getting the answers you need, either press her for more or find another OBGYN that will. I believe in being friendly-assertive with a health-care provider--get the answers you need for your well-being!4 Redbook Reader emor asked:  How long should you wait until deciding on adoption? I have been off birth control for 8 months now and have yet to have a single normal period. I will adopt a child before I will take fertility treatments, but how will I know when to take that step?  This is a very tough question to answer, other than giving you my personal thoughts and what we have discussed as far as adoption. I am sure other readers will be glad to offer their feedback and opinions as well. I know it&amp;#039;s so tough to be disappointed month after month, when you are actively trying to start a family. For us, we do want to try some more fertility treatments before looking further into adoption--not that we value one over the other, it&amp;#039;s just our choice. Some couples decide to proceed with both fertility treatments and adoption at the same time. This can be very expensive and emotionally difficult, so we made the decision early on to only focus on one family-building technique at a time. Since you mentioned that you will definitely adopt before doing fertility treatments, the decision of when to start looking into adoption will really have to come from your heart. I recommend looking into attending an adoption seminar in your area--where you can gather information and make sure this is the route you want to take before making any big emotional and financial decisions.5 Redbook Reader NashSuzy asked: How does Mook handle the Male Factor infertility? My husband and I are dealing with male factor infertility (in addition to my PCOS and Endo). His sperm count has always been 0. How does your hubby deal with this? The night before Mook had his first analysis, he looked and me and said &amp;quot;I really hope there isn&amp;#039;t anything wrong with my swimmers.&amp;quot; I could tell he was so nervous, and knew that we would have some emotional hurdles to cross if the swimmers weren&amp;#039;t swimming.  As I&amp;#039;ve mentioned before, we did find out there aren&amp;#039;t a lot of &amp;#039;em and they don&amp;#039;t like to swim. When the first test results came back, we were both in denial. He was on a medication at the time, and we hoped that it was to blame for the bad results. Then the second and third one showed the same results. Mook really withdrew at first--it was very difficult for us. I wanted so much to comfort him, and he wanted to pull away because he felt like a failure to me. It has taken us many conversations and counseling to get to a place where we can handle this diagnosis. It is still tough for him--it definitely is the hardest after a failed cycle of treatments where he takes the burden of blame back on himself.   Since the very beginning, I have referred to the diagnosis as ours and our infertility. The affirmation that it takes two people to make a baby is important for both of us to remember!Extra fun Friday question: Redbook Reader alison24 asked:  Is there something that you (or Mook) do to battle infertility that is silly or superstitious, but that probably won&amp;#039;t do anything to increase your fertility?   I eat pineapple during the second half of my cycle, since it has been said it helps embryos stick. I ate 3 whole pineapples after the IVF cycle. As I looked back at what I could have done different (which of course is all chance!) I thought &amp;quot;I should have eaten more pineapple!&amp;quot; I think I would have turned into a pineapple! We also have a Chinese fertility chime hanging on our ceiling fan in the bedroom--I keep waiting for the ring-a-ding-ding of the chime to make some bada-bing baby making!   Happy Friday! Enjoy your weekend, and don&amp;#039;t forget to submit requests throughout the week for the next installment of the (in) Fertility Friday Five. Leave your questions in a comment, or email me at jj@redbookmag.com  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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