Sophie Hodge

Transcript by Jayde Stevenson

I knew from an early age that I didn’t want to have children and when I was… uh when I was at school I… I became pregnant and I… I had my son- I… I made the decision to keep him, umm… and he’s… he’s… he’s a wonderful boy. He’s amazing. He’s 16 now. But I knew that I didn’t want any more and I’ve always known that.

Umm and when I was 22, I went to my GP and I… I kind of said ‘I… you know, I don’t want any more is there something you can do?’ and they dismissed it completely and said, you know ‘we don’t do anything until you’re over 30- come back then and… you know we’ll discuss it’.

And at the time I was young, and I thought ‘oh okay that’s obviously the best thing to do’, umm so I actually got into a relationship, um, when I was about 28, I think and uh… we both didn’t want children and kind of said at the time ‘well why don’t we go back in and… and… and talk about it’. So, I went back to the GP, and they immediately suggested that he gets a vasectomy, which… didn’t solve my problem. You know, I think I knew in my mind that we weren’t gonna be together forever. Umm… within going to the GP and them saying ‘you know, you can… you can have a vasectomy’, it took about six months for the whole thing to be done, um, and that was relatively easy, uh.

We then split up (laughs) as I… as I suspected we might and then I started thinking about it more and more. I tried all kinds of different contraceptives, I won’t go into details but, um, a lot of them were really making me feel unwell and having all kinds of horrible effects, and I just didn’t feel like myself, so I went back again. Being 30, you know, I’m allowed now, and I went in and they said, ‘oh no no no, not till you’re 40’, and I… I think I lost my temper at that point, and I said, you know ‘I have been coming here since I was 22 saying I want this done and I haven’t changed my mind’. I… I kind of pressed on and insisted that this was what I wanted, and I did have to go back quite a few times and really sort of make my case, umm… before I was actually sort of given the go-ahead to see a consultant.

Um, I saw the consultant last year who again was really… uhh, just you know ‘you’re so young, you might meet someone, you might change your mind’, and I think my kind of… my take on this is: why on earth should it take me 10 years for something my boyfriend/ ex-boyfriend did in six months, you know- without question. I’ve had to jump through all these hoops to do it and… and it was just kind of accepted that he… he could do that.

Now, I’m on the waiting list and it’s a case of four to six months and they’ll get me an appointment. I feel good about it, but I don’t feel like I can relax yet until you know… until it happens and it’s there.