A Race Across the World star has detailed the ‘huge emotional weight’ of trying to start a family after being born without a womb.
Betty Mukherjee, 28, appeared on the fourth season of the BBC reality show alongside her brother James in 2024.
During their time on the series, Betty broke down in tears discussing her diagnosis with MRKH disorder, also known as Rokitansky syndrome, which left her reproductive system underdeveloped.
‘It means that I don’t have a uterus, I don’t have a womb, and I only have one kidney as well,’ she explained at the time.
‘I think as a young woman, you’re told you’re going to marry, you’re going to have a family, and from a young age when that’s taken away from you, it does put doubts in your mind. Doubts in your purpose as a person, I suppose.’
Two years on, Betty has now spoken in-depth about her health battles as she now begins fertility treatment.
Betty, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, was born with the condition but first realised something might be wrong as a teenager when she hadn’t got her period by age 16.
She was then diagnosed with MRKH, which she said ‘completely reframed’ her future and in the years since had affected her self-esteem, relationships and desire to become a mother.
‘My first reaction was shock more than anything. I don’t think I fully processed it in that moment,’ she recalled of being told about the diagnosis.
Betty said she ‘carried a lot of quiet insecurity’ for a long time but eventually realised that womanhood ‘wasn’t defined by one biological function’. However, she did say the condition ‘carried a huge emotional weight’.
However, the social media and events manager is now undergoing fertility treatment with her partner Dan, 32.
‘We’ve been together for several years and he’s been incredibly supportive throughout my fertility journey,’ she told The Sun.
Betty Mukherjee/ Instagram)
‘We started IVF treatment recently as part of the process to create embryos for future surrogacy.’
Since completing their first round nearly six months ago, the pair now have two ‘healthy PGA tested embryos’ and have recently completed their second round.
As Betty explained, they are working towards securing five PGA tested embryos to be able to be accepted onto a womb transplant programme.
‘With IVF, success isn’t one single moment. There are lots of stages along the way. Right now the goal is to create healthy embryos, which would hopefully allow us to pursue surrogacy or a womb transplant in the future. So, success, for us, will mean having embryos that give us the chance to become parents one day,’ she said.
However, the couple have had to spend just under £13,000 on the treatment so far.
Despite this, Betty has said she is determined to become a mum, which she said ‘has always been something I’ve imagined in my future’, but that the path ‘just looks a little different for me’.
‘It’s not the route I imagined as a teenager, but it’s one I’m incredibly grateful science has made possible,’ she added.
Although Betty initially felt ‘isolated’ after being told she wouldn’t be able to carry her own pregnancy, she’s since come to accept that there are ‘many different ways to build a family’.
She went on to say the end goal to become a mother ‘wasn’t any less meaningful’ and motherhood was about ‘nurturing, guiding, and loving a child unconditionally’.
Before meeting Dan, Betty said sharing details of her condition with people she was dating was quite difficult and she faced ‘hard conversations’ and concerns over ‘how someone might react or whether it would change’ how they saw her.
What is Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser syndrome (MRKH?)
MRKH is a condition that you are born with that is characterised by a shortened vagina, absent cervix and absent or undeveloped uterus (womb).
It affects 1 in every 5,000 women. Women usually discover that they have MRKH during puberty. Although they develop breasts
and pubic hair, they do not start having periods. This is because the ovaries produce the female hormones that allow puberty to occur but the absence of the uterus means that there is no period.
Women with the conditon will not be able to get pregnant or carry a baby. However, eggs can be removed and fertilised by partners or a donor’s sperm and then placed in another woman’s (surrogate mother’s) uterus.
But she said that while the condition was part of her story, it didn’t ‘define my worth’. Betty also said she’d been contacted by women also diagnosed with MRKH who had thanked her for sharing her experience publicly and making them feel less isolated.
As she explained, sharing stories openly ‘breaks down the shame and silence that often surrounds these topics’.
During the episode of Race Across the World where Betty spoke about her condition, her younger brother also broke down in tears after she shared her difficulties with coming to terms with the fact she could never carry her own child.
Tearing up when speaking to camera, James said: ‘To hear that was tough. It was the first time we’ve talked about it, and I have heard it from Betty herself and it’s only now that I realise how much it does affect her and…excuse me, there’s a frog in my throat.’
Choking up and breaking down into tears before being consoled by the camera crew, he added: ‘Brave is now probably an understatement, I’ll have to think of a new word for her.’
In an interview with Metro soon after, Betty admitted she was initially uncertain about sharing her story on the series, but had been sent hundreds of messages, many from women with MRKH thanking her for shining a light on the condition.
‘I would not have expected when getting my diagnosis at 16 that 10 years later, I’d be helping people but definitely want to keep doing that. I want to keep advocating for people who feel a little lost,’ she said.
Race Across the World is streaming on BBC iPlayer.
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