Chelsea Hottovy has always known she didn't want to have kids. So when she was 23, she started looking for a doctor who would do the simple procedure to tie her tubes, preventing any future pregnancies permanently.

"The ways they refused me were awful," she told Cosmopolitan.com over the phone. "They were like, 'Oh, you'll meet someone, you're young.' None of them took me seriously and had an honest discussion with me about it or about long-term birth control or anything." It took her five years to find a doctor who would do the surgery, but when she did in October 2014, she took his next available appointment.

"I told [my boyfriend at the time], 'I'm willing to talk about this with you and tell you what's going on because I know it affects you, but I'm not asking you. I'm doing this,'" she said. "He was really good about it." She took a similar approach with her parents and friends, letting them know that she'd decided to get her tubes tied and that was that. She posted an excited status update on Facebook.

Last month, Hottovy wrote an essay about her decision in an essay on YourTango titled, "I Got My Tubes Tied at 28 Because I Don't Want Kids — Ever." She wasn't nervous to publish it. She just wanted to be as honest as she could about the experience. "I get the reasons people want kids. I do," she wrote. "I'm not such a heartless, selfish monster that I'm incapable of understanding the appeal of a small person who loves you unconditionally and relies on you to guide them safely through a scary world. Parents are brave and strong and incredible people. But so are astronauts and brain surgeons and I don't want to be those things, either."

Her post went viral on the site, and she admits to obsessively reading the comments that flooded in. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

"There are a lot of people saying they've been trying to find a doctor to do it and they can't either," she said. "There are other young women, but also moms who have had two kids and don't want more and they still are having trouble."

Hottovy thinks it's great that some women are feeling more and more comfortable admitting that they just don't want to be moms, and others being supportive of that decision. "It's been so cool to see women being like, 'I don't feel this way, but good for you!'" she said.

As for her own confidence in tying off her ability to get pregnant, she knows she made the right choice. "I fully anticipate there will be some days down the road when I feel a little regret," she said. "But I think the days I don't will far outnumber them."

To read more about Chelsea's story, click here.

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Emma Barker Features Editor Emma Baker is an Editorial Intern and graduate student in NYU's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program.

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