Everything changed when my fiancé caught the flu. For a couple of days, my schedule transformed – wrapped itself around him like sweaty bedsheets – as I brought him food, drink, medicine, wet flannels, anything and everything he needed until he felt better. He was so grateful. It was the gratitude, actually, that did it. As he thanked me profusely for everything I had done, I was hit by a sudden realisation: I don’t want kids.

My logic went a bit like this: having a child, I reasoned, would be like those two days on repeat; constantly catering to the every whim of someone else, my own needs and wants taking a backseat. But would a child thank me over and over again with fevered eyes? No, they’d simply expect me to tie their shoes, wipe their face, cook their tea, mop up their sick and – possibly worst of all – help them divide their fractions. I’d be lucky to get a scented candle out of it one Sunday every March.

It might sound to you as though my mind is pretty made up: I am a woman who doesn’t want to procreate. But then a toddler goes and spoils it all by doing something stupid like grabbing my little finger. My thoughts and feelings are what’s known as “motherhood ambivalence”, an increasingly popular term used by counsellors and academics to describe an uncertainty around having children. It’s often assumed that we all have a stance; that girls automatically grow into women who know, innately, whether or not motherhood is for them. But the fact is, so many of us don’t. It is difficult to know exactly how many – most books, movies and studies focus on one of two camps: those who are mothers and those who are firmly child-free – but there are clues.