The Turner's girl inside me

BEING told you can't have kids when you're a kid yourself is a bit bizarre. It doesn't really register, because you're more interested in what time Blue Peter's on, or what's for  tea.  But that's what I grew up knowing, because I had a thing called Turner Syndrome.

This affects  one in 2,000 baby girls (ONLY girls), and alongside infertility manifests itself in all manner of weird and wonderful ways (see http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Turners-syndrome/Pages/Symptoms.aspx for a list of possibilities). Short stature is high on the list, and to help counter this, I injected myself with growth hormone from the ages of roughly  8 to 13  (forgive me for being vague, it was a while ago) to get me above the 5ft mark - I am a lofty 5ft 1in and unbelievably proud of that accomplishment.

The funniest thing about the injections, was learning the correct procedure on an orange - apparently the skin of an orange is not unlike human skin for texture and strength. Under the watchful eye of the nurse who taught me, I would stab at that poor orange with gusto. The downside was if I forgot about the injection and had to do it late in the evening and tired - not much fun, and rather painful. My thighs still bear the rather unattractive indents where I used to inject.
Hearing has always been a bit of a battle too, again linked to flippin Turner's - operations, both successful and otherwise in a bid to cure various ear infections, throughout my childhood. And I now have two rather nifty bits of metal sticking out of my skull (Bone Anchored Hearing Aids, go Google them, my friends).

But I suppose the biggy is the whole "can't have a family naturally" thing. Because that affects not just me but the people I love the most - my parents, my fiance Ross, his parents, etc etc. And I am not going to lie, I feel a distance from my friends who now have families of their own because of it. It's something we'll never be able to share, and I have always been conscious of that. Ross has been brilliant about it, and that makes me love him even more. Ditto everyone else I've confided in. But I will always have that nagging feeling of "you're not normal" in the back of my mind, and that in the past sent me off the rails for a while,  I'll admit. My lack of self esteem ate away at me, and if you don't value yourself, then you don't expect others to, and that sent me on a bit of a spiral of crazy.
Now, I am happy to report that with the help of my nearest and dearest, I have now acknowledged the Turner's girl inside of me, learnt to love her, and realise that it makes me special rather than abnormal. I can smile at the mirror  - and she smiles back.