I absolutely agree that you have to be comfortable with the instructor.
My first lesson was with a woman of about 50+, with bright pink lipstick which kept distracting me. She told me all about how it was her last day at work, she was leaving and taking half the staff with her to set up her own school and she tutted and frowned every time I did something wrong. The more she tutted the more flustered I got and in the end I nearly burst into tears and I just wanted to go home. I had barely moved the car at all.
The AA called me up to ask how my lesson had went and I blurted it all out and said I was terrified to try again. They refunded my first lesson and offered me another instructor. I only accepted because they said he was exceptionally patient.
The next instructor got me doing 50mph on the first lesson as a way to get over my fear of speed and it was a great feeling. After about 10 lessons though he was getting a bit stroppy with my lack of progress (my issue was being unable to both watch what was going on around me as well as watch what I was doing inside the car) and he must have handed me over to a colleague because I had yet another instructor. He was lovely, very patient and guided me to a first time pass.
Oddly, every single lesson I had was almost a disaster, but the test itself was an absolute breeze. Ever since then I've prided myself on being able to do a really good parallel park and corner reverse etc hahaha!
I love driving, as long as the car isn't a huge volvo estate like my bf's. I had quite a few more lessons than most as I wasn't confident enough (too ashamed to admit how many) but the plus side of so many lessons is that I fine tuned a lot of good habits, along with some anal ones such as never drifting over lanes on a small roundabout...
Please, do yourself a favour though and don't become one of those women who don't bother to look behind when reversing, drift over lanes, speed up and slow down erratically and do their make up in the interior mirror during rush hour!