LET ME BE clear and start by saying: I do not want to have another child. I have been a parent for 16 years now, so I have a fair bit of experience under my belt.

I know what I’m talking about. I’ve been pregnant twice, which is a perfectly reasonable number of times to try something before deciding it isn’t for you.

Childbirth can also get in the sea. If you ask me, there is nothing natural or magical about it.

We have two wonderful, amazing, brilliant and lovely kids. Our family has been blessed beyond measure, and is also, very firmly, complete. That is, right up until my biological clock turned into a Chornobyl-style warning alarm in my late 30s, loudly announcing that the window was closing. That it would never reopen. That the decision had to be made, or it would be made for us.

I had both of my daughters in quick succession. I didn’t exactly plan to have my first, but once she arrived, I didn’t want her to be an only child. I was in my early 20s and, being a child of the last century and a society with massive families, was programmed to believe that all only children were a bit strange. A little off. You know what I mean, of course you do.

Now, with the benefit of 16 more years of life experience under my belt, I do realise that that notion was just silly. And possibly one started by the Catholic Church, come to think of it…

The reality, of course, is that only children are not guaranteed to become adults who refuse to share and have a meltdown in the office over someone using their stapler. I’ve met awful people who had siblings and lovely people who didn’t.

‘One and done’

I also now think it’s incredibly chic to have one child. To be ‘one and done’. It’s very elegant and sophisticated. It’s giving environmentally conscious and self-aware. Plus you get the snazzy slogan, and who doesn’t love a slogan?

‘Two, that’ll do’ just doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s good, but it’s not great.

I guess the benefit of siblings is that they have a built-in best friend (whether they like it or not). Someone who is always there, and who you share your childhood with. Someone who you can discuss your family madness with.

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Two is a good number. I have the same amount of children as I do hands, which is quite essential in any kind of public setting. Nobody has to sit alone on a rollercoaster. Most family packages for holidays, or cinema tickets/days out, cover two adults and two children. We have a neat parent-to-child ratio when we go swimming. Salmon fillets are sold in four packs. It’s all very symmetrical. Four seats around the table for dinner, four stockings on the fireplace at Christmas.

Kids are expensive and having kids means sacrificing everything for a few years (16 and counting). We now have two teenagers, and they just seem to get more expensive as they get bigger. Also, the worry and stress only ever increases.

Fighting Mother Nature

It was when I hit my mid and late 30s that I really just lost the run of myself. Logically, realistically, financially, professionally and in every other lifetime I know that our family is complete. I don’t want to start again. I don’t want another baby. My brain has proposed and passed the motion, but my ovaries keep appealing the decision.

I will visit a friend who has a newborn, and feel every last ounce of sense leave my body as I sniff their little forehead. This is in direct contrast to when I am in the presence of a toddler and their non-stop questions, and I feel like slamming the aforementioned window closed myself. And nailing it shut for good measure. I don’t think I have ever made, reviewed, revised or re-made a decision as many times in my life.

I can tell you one thing for certain: biology hates a deadline. Every year that brought me closer to 40 caused the internal announcement to get louder: ‘Attention shoppers, the baby department will close in 10 minutes. Please make your final selections’. I am the exact person that the phrases ‘limited stock’ and ‘selling fast’ were added to websites for.

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Nothing makes me panic buy quicker than an offer ending soon. And if you were to say I can’t have something any longer? Well, now I will think of nothing else. My life is incomplete until I have it.

It doesn’t matter that I don’t want the item on sale. I’m not ready to accept that the shop is closed. But the announcements are so loud, it’s hard to think clearly. My ovaries simply refuse to listen to reason. No matter how often I tell them that this particular sale item will require another bedroom, a bigger car and sacrifices to my career that I am no longer willing to make.

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They respond with images of the newborn leg scrunch and milk-drunk baby smiles. I argue back, saying that the newborn stage lasts five minutes and then you’re into toddlers and their non-stop questions, which we barely survived the first two times. They send back a tiny pair of socks that are the size of one Jaffa Cake.

After parenting for 16 years, I am closer to freedom than I am to nappies. I cannot go back to the start. I don’t want another baby, but it is surprisingly difficult to say goodbye to the possibility of one.

It’s not that we are missing anyone; if anything, I am missing me. It’s hard to remember who I am after being everything for everyone else for so long; it’s hard to know what I like to do when there isn’t something to be done at all times.

I don’t want to add another chair around the table; I want to spend my time getting to know the people who are already sitting around it, including the version of myself that disappeared 16 years ago.