A teenager has spoken of her ‘total shock’ at being told at
the age of 17 she had no vagina. Jacqui Beck, 19, has
MRKH, an rare syndrome which affects the reproductive
system – meaning she has no womb, cervix or vaginal
opening.
She was only diagnosed after she went to her GP about
back pain – and mentioned in passing that she hadn’t
started her periods.
Tests revealed her condition and that where her vagina
should be, there is simply an ident, or ‘dimple’ – meaning
she is unable to have sex or carry her own child.
Women with the condition appear completely normal
externally – which means it is usually not discovered until
a woman tries to have sex, or has not had her first period.
Miss Beck, from the Isle of Wight, admits when she was
first diagnosed, she felt ‘like a freak’.
‘I’d never considered myself different from other women
and the news was so shocking, I couldn’t believe what I
was hearing.
‘I was sure the doctor had got it wrong, but when she
explained that was why I wasn’t having periods, it all
started to make sense.
‘She then explained that I would never be able to carry a
child and might have to have surgery before I could have
sex.
‘I left the doctors in tears – I would never know what it was
like to give birth, be pregnant, have a period. All the things
I had imagined doing suddenly got erased from my future.
‘I was really angry and felt like I wasn’t a real woman any
more.’
Because she had never attempted to have a physical
relationship, Miss Beck had never noticed the problem
herself. Had she tried, she would have discovered it was
impossible for her to have sex.
She said: ‘It wasn’t really a conscious decision not to have
a boyfriend, I just didn’t really fancy any of the boys in my
area, which is lucky, considering what I know now’.
MRKH affects one in 5,000 women in the UK. Most discover
they have the condition because they haven’t started their
periods, but some find out when they struggle to have
intercourse.
Miss Beck explained she has a ‘dimple’ where her vagina
should be so from the outside it looks normal – which
explains why the condition wasn’t detected earlier.
Despite the shocking news, she is trying to see her
condition in a positive light – and even as a way of making
sure she meets the right man.
She said: ‘If he has a problem with it, then he’s not the kind
of guy I want to go out with.
‘I’m a hopeless romantic and I see it as a great test of
someone’s character. Instead of focusing on it putting off
men, I actually think it will help me find, “the one”.
‘I want to be upfront with any men I meet and tell them
straight away about my condition. I don’t want them to feel
tricked into being with me.
‘I will feel more comfortable if they know the truth and
besides, if they run at the mention of MRKH then I don’t
want to be intimate with them.’
She says that as a teenager, she was blissfully unaware of
her condition – with no idea that the development she was
waiting for would never happen.
‘When I was 14, my friends started talking to me about
their periods. They started carrying tampons around,
complaining about cramps and sharing notes on what it
was like.
‘For a year I waited to go through the same, until at 15,
everyone I knew had started their period apart from me.
‘I didn’t panic though, I’m tall and skinny and thought that
might be something to do with me being a late developer.’
Instead, she focused on her future and when she was 17,
applied to attend a music college in Guildford.
But after suffering from pain in her neck in summer 2012,
she went to see her GP.
‘While I was there, I mentioned I hadn’t started my period
yet. I still wasn’t overly worried but I thought it was worth
saying something
‘My doctor was very surprised but didn’t seem to think it
was serious. He just suggested that he would do some
scans to see what the problem was.’
When scans showed nothing, she was referred to a
gynaecologist, who immediately spotted something was
wrong.
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