When I was 17 years old, I went to the doctor because I had never gotten a period. All of my friends had gotten theirs years ago; my family thought I was just a late bloomer, like all of the women in my family. They all had messed up periods, and all bloomed late. They thought I was the same. They didn’t know how wrong they were. When my mom finally decided to take me to the doctor, it was because I was complaining about cramps. I was having cramps, but no period. I will never forget how confused I was when I went there. I didn’t understand half of the shit that the nurse practitioner was telling me. “You could have this or that. I’m sure it’s something that can be easily fixed”. Well, guess what, it wasn’t something that could be “easily fixed.”
1Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a disorder that occurs in females and mainly affects the reproductive system. This condition causes the vagina and uterus to be underdeveloped or absent, although external genitalia is normal. This condition affects roughly 1 in every 5,000 girls at birth, so I guess that makes it pretty rare.
Women with this condition can have a combination of a missing or partial uterus or a missing or partial vaginal opening. Guess who has it. Yep, me.
I have no uterus, and my vaginal opening was basically non-existent. Thankfully, the vaginal opening part can be fixed through surgery or dilation therapy. I wasn’t even thinking about getting it fixed at the time because I didn’t plan on having sex anytime soon. A year later, at 18, I was like, um, OK, I’m not trying to be a virgin for life.
When the words, vaginal agenesis (another name for MRKH), came out of the doctor’s mouth. I was like, what the fuck is that, sir? After he explained, I was just stuck, and the first words that came to my mind were: “I am defective. I am literally missing pieces. Am I even a woman? Am I unlovable because of this? Why me?”
I cried a lot that day. After my initial depression of finding this out, I tried to push it in the back of my mind. Then, I tried just saying fuck it and telling all of my friends and family about it because then if I told them first, no one could use this to hurt me, I outed myself.
Once I got to college, knowing about this and never having anyone to relate to or talk to about it affected me. I tried not to let other people know about it. I was happy and laughing on the outside, but I would cry myself to sleep when I would be alone. I was slowly beginning to hate myself. I started telling myself that I was overdramatic; it’s not like I had something that could kill me. I was ungrateful, they have people in the world with so much worse things happening to them, and I was sitting here crying because I couldn’t have a baby. So what?! Faking being OK, didn’t help at all. I would have random moments where I would burst out in tears, and then this would start happening around people, so I would have to literally escape to run to my room to have my moment.
If this is something that I still struggle with daily, why am I sharing? The answer is simple. I can not be my best self if I continue to act like I am OK. Maybe me sharing my struggles will help someone else with MRKH or infertility issues. A lesson that I am continually learning is that MRKH does not define me. Yes, it is and will always be a part of me, but it does not make me, me. At the age of 17 is when I stopped loving myself. At the age of 23, I am beginning to love myself for all of me, MRKH included.
Definition:
Photo:
https://www.floravi.com/en/blog/MRKH_syndrome/
