Longford author's debut memoir about loss to launch in October

Laura Doyle is from Newtownforbes and now lives in Aughnacliffe.

A former student of Moyne Community School, she has published a book called “Undelivered: Fertility, Miscarriage and My Journey to Self-Compassion” with Bookhub Publishing. The launch will take place on October 11 at 6pm in Athena Cafe.

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In advance to the memoir’s release, which explores themes such as: trying to conceive and the obsessiveness that can arise from that; societal attitudes and the discomfort in discussing this type of bereavement to the male perspective in fertility and loss which is rarely mentioned along the way (and many more in-depth topics), Laura wants to use her story to bring awareness and conversation.

“After my own experience of miscarriage and loss, I had conversations with many people. Some people who work with women said: 'You have a great way of telling your story and so many women should hear this.' I thought it was a crazy idea at first. Then I started, and it flowed and flowed. So many things unravelled to make it happen. I found it straightforward to get a big piece together.

“It was real and very true, a lot of twists and turns and they were overcome. I am so lucky that one person read the script, who passed it onto another person, and it ended up with an editor and a publisher.

“The right place at the right time made this happen. The stars aligned.”

Saying that she collected key points and poignant moments until she had amassed bullet points to create the memoir, she had conversations with her supportive husband about his perspective.

“There were moments when I needed to pause and get myself back on track,” she said when discussing the writing process.

Bookhub Publishing helped Laura through the editing process with week-to-week feedback and conversation to make sure everything was ethically and factually correct, as well as permission to use real-life conversations.

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As to what Laura hopes for readers to get from her memoir, she explained how it rooted back to her personal experience during her time of loss and grief:

“I remember one day, I’ll never forget it, being on my hands and knees in the living room, distraught. I felt completely alone, a shadow of my former self. I’d suffered severe stress and anxiety, and heartache like no other. I felt completely alone and overwhelmed, and within society you’re too embarrassed to talk about it. It’s still taboo in Ireland today. I look back on my time on the floor, and don’t want someone else to feel that. There are no secrets in this book. The reason being is so frank and honest, if I say it, other people may start talking about it. It is to open the conversations. Let me be the test dummy.”