Thanks everyone for the input, there seems to be some general consesus emerging . Once the thread seems to have run out of steam, I intend to amend the list to fit the input.

Nic/Slyder - i'm thinking that the 'production room' is not nearly as bad as having to parade the paper bag thru the waiting room - surly that is an obvious situation to fix?? At least the production room is down a corridor off the main reception area, and has its own 'delivery' reception away from prying eyes. So point 4 should be expanded to include that delivery areas should be in a discrete place, away from main reception and waiting areas to ensure the depositing person a level of privacy and comfort.

Leasha - i dont know about you - but at the moment I'm feeling like a hard core druggie and will until the bruising goes down (it was always the ones i did the bruised the worst) - your comments really hit home that this is about the partners - irrispective of gender - although the paper bags and production room will always stay with the guys! Good luck with the pg and thanks for your thoughts.

Slyder - do you think that some partners (esp the guys already behind the 8 ball) become more disenfranchised because they do feel so out of the inital conversations because they dont understand the terms and female insides etc etc? I'm thinking that before we went to the FS, I'd done heaps of research on the web etc, but dh was still off in laa laa land coming to terms with the fact that he had poor quality/no. sperm, so he was prob 6 months behind me in the first place. Your dw if lucky to have someone who is so willing to push the envelope and learn so much along the journey.

Nic - you sound like you have a great FS, and clinic, but it is crap about how they treated you and your dh where you had the OPU . I know that I was totally on the verge of tears when I came of it, and would have been a mess without dh there. I think that your experience deserves another point, 8. something along the lines that following all proceedures (no matter how small or significant), partners should be, where medically fesiable, allowed to be with the person going through treatment ASAP. Staff should have advising partners that they can accompany their loved one as the priority. (it sounds very formal, but I'm tired and will play around with it later). At a less significant level, my dh did not come into the room when i had scans (he did come in for the et), but then my FS did not get him after the scan was finished and she discussed with me the results. On reflection, she could have easily done this when she left the room to enable me to get changed, or she could have got a nurse to do it if there were other things the FS needed to do at the time.

Thanks everyone