For almost 14 years, Kimberley Compton from Ammanford tried for a baby. In April this year, she decided to stop.
Now she has written about it. Her debut memoir, A Reason to Start Again, is published on Tuesday 1 December.
The book covers infertility, living with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), relationships, grief and dealing with healthcare, she says. It also tells of the toll those years took on her mental health.
She said becoming a mother was something she “desperately wanted” for much of her adult life. Instead, it became “years of uncertainty, disappointment, heartbreak and difficult decisions”.
‘It wasn’t simply a case of moving on’
Stopping was “the incredibly difficult decision”, she said, and it did not end there: “It wasn’t simply a case of moving on.”
She had to start coming to terms with the possibility that her life “might look very different from the one I’d spent so long planning”.
It was then that she began writing, at first as a private way of processing what she had been through. The writing grew into the book.
She said she wanted to show what happens beyond the appointments, treatments and statistics: “the emotional exhaustion, the strain on relationships, the impact on mental health, and the grief that can come with watching the future you’ve always imagined gradually slip away.”
A first book, written with dyslexia
Kimberley has dyslexia and had never published a book before. Finishing it and publishing it herself was “another significant personal journey”, she said.
She hopes it will reach others who have been through infertility, pregnancy loss or mental health struggles, or “the heartbreak of having to let go of a future they once imagined”.
She also wants more people to talk openly about infertility, especially the feelings that “so often remain hidden behind closed doors”.
Where to get A Reason to Start Again
The paperback costs £11.99 and the Kindle edition £4.99. Paperback preorders are through her own online bookshop, Shelf Indulgence, and Kindle preorders through Amazon.
Anyone who is struggling can call Samaritans free on 116 123, at any time of day or night.
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