Louise and Eamonn McMullan turned to Dr. Phil Boyle in desperation after seven years of trying to conceive and two failed attempts at IVF.  Days after the second IVF attempt failed, Louise finally decided to watch an interview with Dr. Boyle, which a friend had recorded.  Listening to him speak of how potential hormone problems were often not properly investigated she decided to get in touch.
'What he was saying made a lot of sense, particularly as I had irregular menstrual cycles. He focuses on a woman's individual cycle, where previously I had been given a couple of standard treatments and examinations and then pressed into IVF,' she said.
In April I999, Louise learned to chart her fertility with a designated educator before meeting Dr. Boyle the following June to discuss the results. He pinpointed a problem with her progesterone levels in the crucial period after ovulation and prescribed injections to boost it and to stimulate ovulation.

The following October, Louise became pregnant and went on to give birth to Alice, now a strapping eight months.  "I have nothing but praise for Dr. Boyle IVF was such a horrible experience, but you are so desperate by the time you get to IVF that you would do anything. If they told you to stand on your head overnight and Drink tea through a straw you would do it,' she said.
Dr. Boyle's treatment is totally different, you are in touch with your hormones and understand what is going on. His treatment is designed for you and it makes sense.  'When you are trying to have a baby and you can't, it takes over your life - you eat, breathe and sleep it. You would do anything for fertility, it makes you very sad.  'These days you can get most things that you want, you can study and go to university and have a career - all of which I did. You expect things to work out for you, but with infertility, it feels like the big choices have been taken away and there is nothing,' Louise said.
Her husband a GP, regularly refers couples to Dr.. Boyle. For I7 years, Mary and Michael* suffered an agonizing rollercoaster ride of expectation and despair as pregnancy after long-awaited pregnancy ended in miscarriage.  'It was very hard, really very tough and it got harder as I approached my mid-30s and time was running out. We began to think that we would never have a family and considered adoption or fostering,' Mary recalls.  After losing yet another baby in I997, Mary read about Dr. Boyle, and began treatment in February, I998. 'He monitored me for three months and discovered that I had a deficiency of progesterone. He put me on supplements and I was pregnant by September and and subsequently delivered my daughter five-and-a-half weeks early by caesarean section,' she recalls. 'There is no way that I would have her without treatment. I had never brought a pregnancy past three-and- a-half months. Dr. Boyle has been a godsend,' she said. For Lisa and her husband, John*, who finally had a baby, the beauty of Dr. Boyle's treatment is that it is natural, easy to understand and specific. Lisa, who consistently miscarried, consulted experts in Ireland and abroad, but believes they took a blind man's approach, prescribing this and that hoping that something would work. It never did. 'Using Dr. Boyle's method I learned that my progesterone levels were slightly low. This time, by week 24 onwards, I knew that it was going to be different and thankfully I delivered a little baby last year,' Lisa said. 'I'm so glad that he is offering this hope, I'm sorry that we didn't discover it years ago, it would have saved us a lot of stress and heartache.'

*False names were used.