We are brought up in a society where periods = womanhood and womanhood = motherhood.

But both of those statements are untrue.

I am a woman who doesn’t have period and who isn’t a mother, does that make me less?

Spoiler alert – the answer is no.

Yet because society trains us to think that these things are true we believe it. Which means when those things don’t happen for us we can worry that we are somehow not enough. That we haven’t met these societal expectations so where does that leave us.

I have learnt over time that we need to debunk these antiquated views of womanhood because it is so much more than periods and motherhood.

I spent a very long time worrying about the future and what would happen if I didn’t have children. It always felt like my journey and my challenge alone which made it harder to open up about how I was feeling and what I was going through.

Societal expectations infiltrate every part of our lives without us even knowing it. It’s become so ingrained that changing perceptions can be hard.

When I started writing about my experiences with MRKH 10 years ago I was amazed about the people that reached out to me that didn’t have MRKH but for whom what I wrote resonated in some way.

Sometimes from people I had known a long time and I had had no idea of what they were going through.

It’s so easy to forget that the struggles we face, are not faced by us alone. The reason for the struggle may be different but the effect may be similar and it’s not easy to talk or share about topics that are not widely recognised and as such become taboo, especially those around infertility.

I am not less just because these are topics not often talked about. Society is less because it doesn’t recognise them.

It doesn’t recognise that our journeys are not black and white but various shades of grey and that that’s ok.

One future path is not more or less than another.

I hope by talking and sharing more we can raise awareness of the oversimplification and expectations we face and believe more that our journey is our own, not dictated by societal expectations, what our friends do or don’t do but reflect the reality we face with no judgement or question.