PERSONAL NOTES

A new treatment has been developed that gives paralysed men who are unable to ejaculate a greater chance of fathering a child. It involves using a rectal probe to stimulate ejaculation for in vitro fertilisation. Gary Rodriguez, 38, a former roofer, injured his spine in an accident at work in 1988. He and his wife, Damaris, aged 29, have been been married for a year and hope to start treatment soon. He talked to Cherrill Hicks.

His sex life: After the accident I worried about sexual relationships, but now I'm married and everything's fine. Without being too explicit, we do everything "but", and what we do we thoroughly enjoy. I get a lot of pleasure out of our sexual relationship. I would say my wife does, too.

Why he wants children: We have a very strong relationship so we want to have kids, like anyone else would. And we both come from very large families. I know that there are people who will say that I shouldn't because I'm in a wheelchair but I can pick a child up, cuddle it, wash it, change it and give it love - what else is there?

The treatment: I've already had the electro-ejaculation - they put you to sleep so you don't know anything about it. The doctors say that my sperm are mobile but they tend to swim round in circles because of the injury. My wife will take drugs to make her produce more eggs and each egg will be injected with a single sperm.

Cost: About £2,000 per cycle. Our health authority

says that it will pay if it thinks you are a deserving case, but it hasn't put anything in writing.