What I did today... Dr David Walsh Medical Director of Sims Fertility Clinic
'I usually come into the clinic at around 8am. If I'm in theatre that day, we'll have a pre-operative meeting, which usually happens around 8.15am.
"This takes about 15 minutes and we go through the cases requiring egg collection that day and ensure the bloods are in order.
"We need to ensure that we have sperm available to fertilise the eggs, either from the patient's husband or partner, or, in about 10pc of the cases, from donor sperm.
"I'll then go in and talk to the patients to make sure we are all agreed on what is to happen.
"The patient then receives conscious sedation, which is a combination of morphine and a valium-like drug which means they generally don't remember the procedure.
"We go into theatre and carry out an internal scan with a needle. Then we draw the eggs from the follicles and send them to the laboratory for fertilisation.
"Meanwhile we're also getting a sperm sample from the man.
"The patient, who has come in that morning, usually goes home an hour or two after the procedure. This means they're usually home by lunchtime -- the whole process takes about three to three-and-a-half hours.
"The following day the lab will usually contact the patient to give them the news of the success rate -- ie how many of the eggs have been fertilised by the provided sperm.
"About two to six days after the egg collection, we will carry out the transfer of the embryos to the woman's womb.
"Generally we do embryo transfers in the afternoon, at about 2pm, following a doctor's meeting.
"The most essential part of that process is gentleness, because in order for the embryos to implant in the wall of the womb, they need to get into the uterus in the best possible condition.
"We try to ensure that in two ways. First, about a month to six weeks before we do this procedure, we do a practice run on each patient.
"This is to make sure we know exactly where to put the embryos and how to get them there, because every womb is different.
"The second thing we do is an ultrasound at the time of the embryo transfer to ensure the catheter is correctly positioned so that the embryo transfers smoothly into the right place.
"Once that is done it's in the lap of the gods. We'd usually do four egg collections in the morning and between four and six embryo transfers in the afternoon.
"We also run some evening clinics. Most days before I go home, I'll also phone about five of my patients to discuss how their treatment is progressing."
- Ailin Quinlan
Irish Independent
