I'm sorry I wasn't very gracious when you cancelled my operation this week.
It's very kind that you have offered to send me another date but I can't just come another day.
I had been planning for this for six months, when I first asked my GP if I could possibly get sterilised on the NHS.
My other options are no longer suitable, my partner is unwilling to have a vasectomy (even though that would be a minor procedure under local anaesthetic) or use condoms and he helps himself to my body when I'm asleep.
I'm trying to split up but he won't leave. I'm working on that.
I had arranged for someone to be around overnight and childcare for my kids. One of my children has ASD and I had prepped them that I wouldn't be around in the evening and I'd be at the hospital but I'm fine and no need to worry.
I'd arranged a week off work with unpaid leave and annual leave because I don't get sick pay.
I'd psyched myself up for a general anaesthetic and had been washing with the special shower gel all week and fasted all day, with a headache from caffeine withdrawal and the sides of my mouth are dry and cracking.
So when you cancelled me at half past five in the evening I was very upset. This was my only chance. I can't do all that again.
I absolutely cannot risk another pregnancy /another child.
(for clarity, I didn't have a go at anyone, I work in healthcare and I know it's a fact of life that things get cancelled sometimes. But I'd been assured that as a day case who wasn't dependent on the availability of a hospital bed post op, it was extremely unlikely to get cancelled.)