When I was just 16 years old, I was told that I would never be able to carry a child and I would need treatment to have intimate relationships.

I am one of the 1 in 5,000 women born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome, MRKH for short. In my case, I was born with an absent vagina and cervix as well as an underdeveloped uterus.

The mental and physical struggle of this diagnosis is real and it took a toll on me. During the first few months after my diagnosis I felt very alone. None of my friends knew what I was going through. It wasn’t until I started to meet other women like me online and at a conference in Boston that I began to heal. I can honestly say that meeting other women with MRKH was life-changing. Overall, it was an empowering experience to find out that I was not alone! Although the Boston conference experience was valuable, it took seven (sometimes more) hours to get there and another seven hours to get home. I kept thinking that it would be so much more convenient to attend an MRKH conference in Canada.

Now that I am a graduate of Public Relations and Event Management, I decided to organize and run my own conference here in Southern Ontario, Canada, where I live. After much planning, I am proud to announce that the first-ever Kingston, Ont. MRKH Conference will be held on Saturday, Sept. 29th at Botterell Hall. The event aims to bring teens and adult women who have MRKH and their supporters together for an educational bonding experience. I started organizing the conference in May, and in just two months, I raised over two thousand dollars to help support the conference, which is now less than three weeks away. To date, over 15 women have registered for the event along with their partners, and family. And there is still time to register! To find out more about the conference click on the links below.

-Ashley

For more information, check out the Facebook event page:  https://www.facebook.com/events/997832610380213

For the official Kingston, Ontario conference website go to: https://mrkhconference.wixsite.com/kingston

For information about the Boston MRKH Conference on Nov. 3, 2018 go to: https://youngwomenshealth.org/mrkh-conference/