Born without a vagina I thought I’d never find happiness – but now I’m set to marry and have kids … story in Real People magazine 

Kathryn came to Featureworld to raise awareness of a condition where she was born without a vital part of her body.

When Kathryn was just 19 – and having undergone lots of tests – doctors gave her the devastating news that she’d been born without a vagina and a uterus.

The news was a bombshell as potentially it meant she would never have sex and could never have a child.

Since she was 14, she’d been undergoing tests. From the outside everything was normal. But although she has what is known as a ‘dimple’ where there is what appears to be a vagina, she had never started periods. Yet despite going to the doctors, they kept on telling her she was fine. It wasn’t until she was 18 that she was finally booked in for the battery of tests leading to her devastating diagnosis.

The syndrome, which affects one in 5000 women, is called Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome (MRKH syndrome).

Kathryn had just started dating a man and faced having to tell him. He was supportive and thankfully tests showed her ovaries were producing hormones and eggs but she went through huge depression and panic attacks.

She was offered cosmetic surgery to try to create a vagina using skin from another part of the body. But this carries risks of infection, bleeding and it would mean going into hospital for an operation.

And Kathryn had read about a new type of plastic surgery where she could ‘grow’ a vagina. It involved inserting a series of smooth cylinder-shaped dilators to stretch the dimple.

She spent a night in hospital being shown how to insert them for a few minutes a time each day. As the weeks passed her skin stretched and she was able to repeat the process several times a day using larger dilators until she had a full-sized vagina. 

Kathryn and her boyfriend were able to have sex for the first time without any problems.

Two years later Kathryn and her boyfriend broke up. However, she has now met a wonderful man and recently got engaged. Telling him about her condition was hard but he couldn’t have been more understanding. 

They are now set to marry and hope to have kids one day using her eggs and a surrogate to carry their baby.

Kathryn’s real life story was told sensitively and informatively in Real People magazine and I feel quite sure reading her positive article will go a long way to helping any other young woman who is going through the same experience.

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