SO you all know the one about me having three kids and aren’t we the lucky ones. I’m not even being snarky when I say this because each time we’ve wanted to conceive it’s been as simple as me coming off the pill and wham bam there’s that ol’faithful blue line. Getting pregnant has been easy – too easy – and now I’m done with having babies, it’s time for the contraception to become permanent.

For the majority of our relationship I’ve been on the pill. This doesn’t come naturally to someone who can’t even remember which kid has which name. Taking tablets at the same time every day is worthy of a Nobel Prize In Responsibility but I’ve done my job and I’ve done it well. Fortunately the pill and my body haven’t really clashed, although there have been a few times when I’ve been particularly stabby and I do like to blame that on the medication rather than it actually just being ME. I sure do miss the pill for that very excuse.

Since our third child, I’ve had the coil. Which is fine except as well as being done with babies, I’m also done with me being the accountable person around here. Yes I do often knock up my husband for his credit card but I’ve just spent the past five years ensuring I don’t get knocked up myself. Five years is a long time to have a foreign object in your body and because I always seem to have three foreign bodies attached to me intermittently, I’m calling it a day.

My body needs some recovery time and, boy, do I deserve it. I’m getting to the point where I no longer pee myself when I jump on the trampoline. I’m swearing off medicine that comes with a prescription. I refuse to have anything inside me that doesn’t belong there. But by taking the coil out, I don’t want to have to go back on the pill. I’m 43 years old and I refuse to take a regular tablet – unless it’s a valium washed down with Bombay Sapphire.

Contraception, in a nutshell, is no longer going to be my remit and I’ll tell you why. This has been US:

ME: On the pill for years, child birth three times including one emergency Caesarean, lost lots of blood as well as my dignity in the delivery suite, breast fed, misplaced one set of perky boobs, found the ability to pee myself when I laugh hard, had the coil invading my body, given up chocolate in the hope of returning to pre-children weight.

MY HUSBAND: A chipped tooth and two doses of Man Flu.

So I’m pretty fixated on the fact that it’s now HIS turn to be the responsible one. You only have to look at our history to see that I have sacrificed so much more. Isn’t it up to him to now contribute? It really is time for that man to man up. And I’m talking the big V word - VASECTOMY.

At some point in your relationship, you have to just make the arbitrary decision that you’re done meeting new offspring. It’s been put off longer than it should have been and it’s time to take this situation by the balls. A quick bit of asking around has revealed that a vasectomy is the birth control choice amongst many of our friends. It’s minimally invasive, complications are rare, he gets to lie around for a few days and, most importantly, I don’t have to do anything.

These days it’s hip to get snipped. My husband will be joining a male social group which includes some of his closest friends. It’s a Vasectomy Club and the first rule of Vasectomy Club is let’s talk about how grown up, courageous, generous and responsible we are. It’s 21st Century Man at his most modern.

The only down side so far is that my husband is rubbish at getting things done. He’s amazing in the world of work but organising the everyday shizzle is tricky. So I’ve given him the deadline of April 30 to sort something out. Or as I like to call it: V-Day. It’s perfect timing because the Easter hols are coming up and three weeks of kids at home will remind him that we definitely don’t want any more. The clinic waiting room will be a lot less crowded than King’s Cross. There are some great movies on in April and, being sympathetic, I’ll even provide free snacks (cheese balls and mixed nuts). I will wash his dressing gown and pass the frozen peas. Doctor’s orders = two days lazing around doing nothing. Heck, he’s going to have a ball.

However my husband has gone a bit squirmy and does not like me speaking of the vasectomy. Indeed he has many ways of deflecting talk of V-Day including: getting mad, getting quiet, getting nauseous, getting too much Google knowledge, getting man flu. Nothing outstrips his latest excuse though – getting baby fever. Yep, you heard me. My husband has decided that the easiest way to avoid V-Day is by planning to make another baby.

And, boy, is he convincing. He’s talked of the cutting of the umbilical cord and how he’s getting his final snip. He looks at our youngest and says “That’s my last baby”. He’s so persuasive in this newborn talk that I’ve had no choice but to concede. I have agreed to let him out of V-Day in hopes of getting that little girly girl he has always dreamed of. He’s free to get his jiggy on to conceive another baby. In fact he has my full permission to go forth and pro-create.

When I find out who he’s having this baby with, I’ll let you know.