Yet several GPs have still refused her requests for a NHS

Storming out of my GP’s office recently, I felt a familiar rising anger. I’d had to miss half a day of work due to yet more side-effects from the contraceptive pill I was taking, and once again I’d got no further in my quest to stop taking them once and for all.

I accept hormonal contraception works brilliantly for some people, but while it’s kept me from becoming pregnant — which I absolutely don’t want — it’s also saddled me with dizziness, vomiting, skin problems, pain and relentless bleeding.

I’ve tried every type of Pill and never found one that agrees with me, and as implants and patches use the same hormones, they’re no good for me either.

Holly Brockwell, 29 (pictured), says she has always known that she never wants to have children, but despite asking to be sterilised since she was 26-years-old, doctors are still refusing to grant her the procedure

Since I’ve never wanted children and firmly believe I never will, the clear solution to me is sterilisation, which these days is a relatively quick procedure under local anaesthetic.

That recent trip to my GP is not the first time I’ve asked. In fact, I’ve made the request to be sterilised every year since I was 26 — I’m now 29 — and have been refused every time.

I can’t even get a referral. The response is always: ‘You’re far too young to take such a drastic decision.’

But why? I’ve been considered mature enough to have children since I was 16, and I’m almost twice that age. Isn’t making a baby irreversible, too? Do people tell pregnant young mothers they’ll ‘change their minds’ or ‘don’t know what they want’ like they say to me?

Of course not. If at 16, women like me are old enough to make a decision that affects not just themselves but a child, their father and the society in which the child will grow up, then surely I’m old enough to make a decision that affects only me.

So how can I be so sure I don’t want to be a mother?

'I’ve spent far longer thinking about not having children than most people do about having them. I’ve considered every aspect, including what will happen if I change my mind,' says Holly (stock image)

It’s difficult to articulate why you don’t want something. Try explaining exactly why you don’t fancy someone, or why you don’t feel like pizza for dinner today. You just don’t.

The only way I can explain my attitude is that when I imagine all those beautiful moments everyone talks about — holding a new baby in my arms, my child’s first day at school, teaching them about the world — I feel nothing but a strong sense of ‘no thanks’.

I don’t think it helps that my mum never wanted children, and got talked into having them by my dad.

She had a sterilisation after me, her second. But she remarried, and her next husband wanted children of his own, so she had the operation reversed and had three more.

As a result, she’s never had any money or freedom, missed out on a lot of the things she wanted to do with her life, and feels trapped by choices she made decades ago. I don’t want that to happen to me.

'The only way I can explain my attitude is that when I imagine all those beautiful moments everyone talks about - holding a new baby in my arms - I feel nothing but a strong sense of "no thanks"' says Holly

It also doesn’t help that I’ve seen the reality of life with children. I was at home when my little brother and sister were young and I’ve seen how much drudgery was involved: non-stop cooking, washing and cleaning.

For some, that work is completely worth it, and I have nothing but respect for people who slave away day and night to give their children a good life.

But if you’ve got no innate desire to raise children, it’s not worth the sacrifice.

Nonetheless, parents continually try to persuade me to join the club. ‘My kids are my life!’ they say... and I shudder.

I want my own life. I want a career, money, time and energy. I want to be Holly, not Mummy. I want to be able to travel and say ‘yes’ to opportunities without worrying about school catchment areas or baby-sitters.

I’ve given impassioned speeches like this to endless parents, but they just look at me sadly, as if I’m dead inside. How could I not want this tiny screaming demon that wakes them at 4am and breaks their favourite possessions? Why wouldn’t I want baby sick on my clothes or years of teenage tantrums?

'I was at home when my little brother and sister were young and I’ve seen how much drudgery was involved,' says Holly (picture posed by models)

The fact is, I’ve spent far longer thinking about not having children than most people do about having them. I’ve considered every aspect, including what will happen if I change my mind (I really don’t see why I couldn’t foster or adopt).

I am single at the moment and I stay on the Pill even when I’m not seeing anyone because coming on and off the Pill messes with your body to an alarming degree. I’ve looked at every other kind of contraception in detail, over and over again.

I don’t want the side-effects of unnecessary hormones.

I don’t want a painfully inserted coil sitting in my womb for years.

I don’t want to rely on risky condoms and end up needing an abortion.

I just want to know I’m permanently safe from my worst nightmare: getting pregnant.

Yet the NHS doesn’t believe I’m old enough to make this decision so I’m stuck with pumping nauseating hormones into my body.

I’m told it’s unfair to expect the NHS to pay for an ‘unnecessary’ operation. Yes, it’s costly — £1,500 if you go private. But I work hard as a journalist, I pay my taxes, and the procedure is available — just not if you’re under a certain magical age that no one will reveal to me.

There’s no policy that I can find saying sterilisations are only available after a certain age on the NHS, yet GPs act as if there is. The best estimate I’ve had is ‘in your mid-30s,’ though one doctor told me he wouldn’t even consider it until I’d had children!

And the cost argument doesn’t make sense to me, either, because the alternative is expensive too: the NHS has to continue paying for the Pill and treatment for side-effects for the rest of my fertile life, plus (God forbid) potential terminations.

'The NHS doesn’t believe I’m old enough to make this decision so I’m stuck with pumping nauseating hormones into my body,' says Holly, who reacts badly to hormone-based contraception methods

And is £1,500 really a lot compared with the lifelong healthcare costs of children I’m not going to have?

Eventually, I’ll be sterilised one way or another — either because I’ve finally saved up enough to go private (and goodness knows I’m trying, but with London rent and living costs it’s not easy) or because I’ll eventually reach an age where my decision is taken seriously.

Surely it makes more sense to do it sooner rather than later, to stop wasting money on pills that make me ill?

I’ve taken up hours of precious GP appointments dealing with the problems they’ve caused me, not to mention the four occasions I’ve made appointments to ask for referrals.

I can’t help thinking part of the NHS’s reluctance is down to my gender. There is such a strong belief that all women want to be mothers that both male and female GPs seem to find it hard to believe me when I say ‘never’. I know of men in their 20s and early 30s — including ones without children — who were given an NHS vasectomy on their first request.

That’s deeply frustrating. Why can a man say he never wants children and be believed, but I can’t?

Whether I say it to doctors, nurses, friends or acquaintances, the responses are identical to an eerie degree. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told I’ll change my mind, or that it’ll be different when they’re my own, or that there’ll be no one to look after me when I’m old, or that it’ll all change when I meet the right person.

Why do near-strangers think they know my mind better than I do?

As for there being no one to look after me when I’m old, the idea that people who have children are always well cared for is far from the truth for many older people.

I can’t help thinking part of the NHS’s reluctance is down to my gender. There is such a strong belief that all women want to be mothers that both male and female GPs seem to find it hard to believe me when I say ‘never’. I know of men in their 20s and early 30s — including ones without children — who were given an NHS vasectomy on their first request.

The ‘right person’ issue is a bigger one. It’s probably the most annoying of the things people say to child-free women, because it puts the needs of a non-existent man above mine.

Essentially, they’re saying that if a man wants a baby with me, then my opinion on the matter won’t count, because of course I’ll want to make him happy.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to understand that the right person for me won’t want children, either.

No, that doesn’t mean I should be with someone who’s already had them (as many people suggest). It means I want someone who feels the way I do.

When I explain that my partner will be number one in my life and I want to be number one in theirs, people call me selfish. But why is it wrong to want to be with someone who has the same dreams and ambitions as I do?

Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many men who feel the same way. More than one person has ended a relationship with me over this issue, and I’ve had to break up with still more after realising that while he might have told me ‘I don’t want them either’, what he really meant was ‘I think you’ll change your mind’.

My longest relationship was with someone who said he was happy to be child-free for the whole seven years we were together — we didn’t split up over the issue — but now even he says he wants to be a dad.

It’s painful, but I have to have the conversation about children as soon as I meet someone, because almost everyone feels differently from me and it’s not something you can compromise on.

It’s hard enough to meet the right person, and it’s even harder when you have to rule out almost all of them. One day you’re excited about the new person you’re seeing, the next they mention that they can’t wait to be a brilliant dad. Your heart sinks, and you’re back to square one.

Friends ask why I can’t just see how it goes, and make the decision later. After all, no one knows if they want children with someone when they first meet.

But I know exactly how it feels to be desperately in love with someone, wishing for a future you can never have, knowing the relationship is doomed from the outset because you want different things.

A couple of recent relationships have ended this way, and it was horrible.

If one person wants babies and one doesn’t, where’s the middle ground? I’d rather be single for ever than pining for someone whose desire to be a dad was stronger than their love for me. That’s heart-breaking.

I pay my taxes, and the NHS offers this procedure, so why can’t I have it? Because GPs can’t seem to accept that a young woman might aspire to be more than a baby factory.