Inside, I felt my relationships with my female friends sour. I was jealous of everything their bodies could do, and annoyed that they didn’t really sympathise. They tried to rationalise everything and told me that science would be so advanced by the time we were all 30, it wouldn’t matter anyway, and I was lucky I didn’t have a period every month. I know they were trying to be supportive in a carefree 16-year-old way, but I’d had to grow up about 10 years in two weeks, and no longer felt carefree in any way. Romantic relationships-wise, my diagnosis changed everything. I didn’t want to be anywhere near boys. I didn’t want them to touch me or know anything about me or my body. I was seeing a guy for a month or so before I met my current boyfriend, and fell for him pretty hard. I trusted him and tried to tell him about my MRKH syndrome. He dumped me the next day, on Christmas Eve. Then, out of nowhere, the guy I’ve been with for nearly six years walked into my life. I told him about MRKH and the ways it would affect me and us as a couple, and obviously I was terrified. He took it like I was telling him the weather – completely unflinchingly, which was perfect. The treatment to have sex is different for different MRKH women, but generally it means you go into hospital for a week for the treatment and they tell you it’s best if you’re in a relationship where you’re having sex regularly. Since I was pretty busy with important exams from 16 to 18, it wasn’t until I was 19 that I could have the treatment that would enable me to have sex. I’m very lucky that my boyfriend loved me and was patient enough to wait nearly two years, but I can’t imagine it’s that 'easy' for a lot of other MRKH women. It’s also not something that then goes away. Every time we have sex or I try to masturbate or anything like that, it’s either physically painful or psychologically jarring. Instead of enjoying myself, my mind goes right back to lying on a hospital bed, having doctors help me create a clinical vagina.