
I was born with a condition known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome (or MRKH for short), although I didn’t find out that I had it until I was 18, in 2007. Basically, for me this condition meant that I was born without a uterus. Without any of the other issues sometimes associated with MRKH it was the lack of a period that led my mum and I to chasing answers.
At the time I had a long term partner, Brodie, who is still by my side today. The years between then and now were hard, and emotional and full of ups and downs. But on the whole we had a happy life, with one big thing missing (the cliché can’t be avoided).
I know kids aren’t for everyone, but for me I’d always wanted a family, and having an amazing partner who I knew would be an amazing dad only made me want it more.

In the early years after my diagnosis I really mourned the loss of never ‘being’ pregnant. Of course, I was devastated about the possibility of never becoming a mother, but ultimately it was the physical presence of a pregnant woman’s stomach that would overwhelm me with grief.
As time went on, I let go of that loss, and my focus gradually shifted to the future that Brodie and I would be missing out on. A future with a family. Now my childhood memories of times with my family were ever so slightly tainted with the thought that I may never one day get to make those memories with my own child. Eventually, I could hardly remember a time when I truly believed that I would have a family.
MRKH is a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing in that I knew I couldn’t carry a baby. The reason for our inability to conceive was 100 per cent finite, there were no ifs, buts or maybes. But it’s also a curse, because there is no opportunity for hope, at least hope of falling pregnant. The answer is no, your body will not carry a baby, so it’s hard to blissfully picture a future with a family. As much as I tried to imagine a baby in our future it usually ended with me in tears, head buried in a pillow.