STARS OF THE FUTURE

When Vics Lane, 20, from Kent, didn't get her period, she would never have thought it would change her life...

- KEZIA REYNOLDS

Putting a sanitary pad in my pocket, I felt ready for puberty. I've just got mine, a friend said.

'Me too,' said another.

Not me, though.

I always had a pad on hand to give to a friend, yet I never needed one for myself.

'Have you not started yet, Vics?' friends asked.

I grew pubic hair, and boobs, and yet my period never came.

By the time I was 17, my friends and I would talk about why I hadn't started.

'She's lucky, some of my friends said.

I wasn't worried about it for a long time-I saw it as a bit of a blessing.

I was seeing my friends in pain every month and constantly moaning 'I was a late bloomer, too, Vics,' my mum Juliet told me. 'I wouldn't worry too much.

Eventually my teachers noticed our conversations and suggested I should go to the doctors.

'It's probably worth getting checked out, they said.

After six months of blood tests, ultrasounds, and consultations, I was diagnosed with Mayer-RokitanskyKuster-Hauser syndrome (MRKH)-a condition where you're born with underdeveloped reproductive organs-that means I don't have a cervix, have two uterine buds rather than a womb, my vaginal canal is shorter than average and I have one kidney.