My fertility journey started at 17 with the unexpected diagnosis of MRKH.

I had no idea at the time what it would mean for me and being faced with fertility so young is both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing to know and not have to endure many years to find out why, or perhaps never know why, things wouldn’t happen naturally. A curse to find out at a time where I should be more concerned with A-Levels than what being born without a womb would mean.

Being born with Absolute Uterine Factor Infertility (AUFI) makes things complex, I have ovaries and I still ovulate but I don’t have a period. Technically my fertility is not specifically affected by MRKH itself but because I can’t carry a pregnancy I am considered infertile.

I always found that difficult to get my head around.

Whilst my fertility journey technically started at 17 it wasn’t until later in my twenties where I really explored what fertility meant for me with MRKH.

I learnt, as so many others do, that there is a lottery to getting funding for fertility treatment on the NHS and that your chances of getting funding arguably seems to have even less chance of winning than the actual lottery.

I did the tests, scans and the exploration of my general fertility health. Then came the funding application. Support from my specialist team but no support from the Primary Care Trust as it was then (now they are ICBs – Integrated Care Board). Funding application rejected with little explanation. Appeal after appeal with no luck – just continued rejection because it would “set a precedent” and my condition was “not that rare”. Whilst I was seeing my Primary Care Trust also funding a breast enhancement for a non life threatening reason. Are you kidding me?

The hardest bit was learning that my chances of success to get funding for fertility treatment were even less because I couldn’t carry my own child at the end of it even though it would be my egg/embryo.

The fertility treatment was the same whether I had a womb or not but the future need of a surrogate was what made it too challenging for the NHS to consider. No consideration of fertility preservation. No consideration for the fact I had AUFI since birth.

This was 15 years ago and you would perhaps expect things would have changed for the better. Sadly, that is not the case. Access to fertility funding is still limited, it is still something that has to be fought for and may still not be successful.

Worse than that – its not consistent. Different ICBs approach it differently, the rules don’t apply blanketly despite NICE guidelines being clear and despite the WHO recognising fertility as a disease, the “interpretation” varies massively.

Like many I fought for what I believed in. I had support from doctors and my local MP (picture from 10 years ago when this was all happening) at the time but nothing changed. In the end I decided not to pursue it and I can look back and feel no regret for that decision.

But something has to change. Being part of the APPG Fertility event this week in Parliament was powerful and empowering. I was encouraged by the efforts being made and passion of a community, stronger together. There is so much good work being done and awareness of fertility challenges has never been so transparent as it is today. Yet our society can’t keep up and there is so much more work to do.

I, we as an organisation, continue to fight for fairness for MRKH and support everyone affected by infertility. We can’t continue this inconsistent postcode lottery and inequitable access because of different fertility conditions, location and because someone just doesn’t want to “set a precedent”.

The government needs to do better. We fight for better and equal and fair.

This post was shared as part of our support of National Fertility Awareness Week (NFAW) 2026