For years, he found excuses to avoid the moment when someone might discover the secret he had carried since birth.
Andrew Wardle was born in the United Kingdom with a rare condition called bladder exstrophy, which caused his bladder to develop outside his body and meant he was born without a penis. From a young age, he underwent numerous operations, but for decades there was no reconstructive procedure that could give him the sex life he wanted.
As an adult, he had romantic relationships, but avoided intimacy and hid his condition out of shame and fear of rejection. He himself said that he had come up with various excuses to avoid having sex, and that keeping the secret ended up deeply affecting his life.
Everything changed when a team of specialists at University College London proposed a complete reconstruction. The doctors used skin, muscles and nerves from his forearm to create a penis for him, in a process that required several operations and years of treatment.
The final stage involved implanting a device that would allow him to have an erection. After recovering and waiting the amount of time recommended by his doctors, Andrew was able to have sex for the first time at 45, with his girlfriend, Fedra.
After spending much of his life hiding, what changed most for Andrew was not just his body: for the first time, he could stop making excuses and live a part of his life that he had always felt was out of reach.