When Laura Reader met Chris Bartley, she knew the young carpenter was the one she wanted to spend the rest of her life with and start a family.

But five months into their relationship Laura was dealt a devastating blow when told she had been born without a womb and would never be able to carry a child of her own.

Despite the heartbreak, their romance grew and they were engaged in 2009 and married two years later.

Laura, 28, from Wigmore, said: “Chris wanted a baby as much as I did. And it would have been easy for him to walk away. But he didn’t and has been enormously supportive.”

Laura, a former Walderslade Girls’ School pupil, was diagnosed when she was 18 after going to her GP because she had not started her periods.

She said: “It was something no woman would ever want to hear. I have ovaries and my own eggs, but basically bits of my reproductive system are missing.”

The couple had given up all hope of having a baby naturally and as a last resort looked into surrogacy, which costs thousands of pounds, and adoption.

Then out of the blue, in 2013, Laura got a call from her mother-in-law, who had read an article about a team of doctors who had spent 10 years researching the possibility of carrying out the first womb transplant in the UK.

Surgeons in Sweden had pioneered the operation and a woman had successfully become pregnant and given birth to a boy.

Laura said: “This was the best news I could ever hear. Ten years after being diagnosed with something I had never heard of, I at last had a glimmer of hope.”

The charity Womb Transplant UK was set up in a bid to raise the £500,000 to carry out the first 10 transplants, which are not funded by the NHS.

Laura is on a shortlist of 104 women who also have the conditions known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser syndrome, which affects 1 in 5,000 women.

She is waiting to hear whether she will be one of those selected to have the surgery.

“I know it sounds a bit daunting. But I have been living with this for 10 years and I am prepared to go through with this if it means we can have our own baby together" - Laura Reader

Laura, who helps out at her husband’s upholstery company run from their home in Durham Road, said: “Straightaway, I knew I wanted to raise money and awareness for this amazing charity.

“I organised a charity event in my back garden with prize draws, a barbecue, cake donations and hired a bouncy castle. Together with my family, friends and neighbours, we raised over £1,100.”

If Laura is picked, the womb will be implanted in a six-hour operation and she will be monitored with drugs for a lengthy period to ensure her body does not reject the organ.

She will not be able to try for a baby with the help of IVF treatment for a year. The baby would have to be delivered by caesarian section.

If they decided they do not want to try for another child she would have to undergo a full hysterectomy.

Laura meets the criteria for the operation in that she is under 38, a healthy weight and with a long-term partner.

She said: “I know it sounds a bit daunting. But I have been living with this for 10 years and I am prepared to go through with this if it means we can have our own baby together.”

Her friends who work at Feathers hairdressers in Rainham are organising a fundraising afternoon tea at the salon in Station Road, between 3pm and 5pm on Saturday, February 20. All are welcome to go along.