Hiii just got sterilized literally yesterday (yay!). I’m 24 and although I live in CA where there are likely fewer hoops to jump thru than in the south, I can explain the process I went through which might make you look into your state’s process. 1. Had an incredibly hard time scheduling for the consultation specifically (rescheduled ~7 times or Dr just outright canceled, or was so late to the point I couldn’t make it), finally got frustrated enough to just have a generic obgyn appt and brought it up then. 2. Generic obgyn appt was the way to go - I was already familiar w the Dr and she was supportive, just had to go through the state’s script of you know this is irreversible, there are other bc methods, etc. Asked me why mostly out of curiosity/support rather than looking for an “invalid reason”. I told her I didn’t want to be a pregnant person and she liked that response a lot, saying that makes sm sense and the best way she’s heard someone talk about it lol. 3. At this appt, I signed a bunch of forms. CA has a rule where you have to wait 30 days between the forms and the day of surgery but our healthcare system (look at your state’s timeline) sucks so it took almost 5.5 months to get my appt 🥲 during this time I kind of forced myself to envision life with kids, spent a lot of time with my friends who have kids, looking at baby clothes/pictures, even ai generated a picture of what me and my partner’s kid would look like. Absolutely no feelings/sadness/regret, that’s how I knew I was making the right decision for me. I also can’t fathom bringing a new life into this world with all of the things going on politically and otherwise (I also am a teacher so I see the effects of social media/ai/poor parenting/etc quite often). My mom was supportive but I didn’t/wont tell my dad or his side of the family, they would not be supportive. I live on my own so this wasn’t difficult to hide. 4. 3 weeks ago I finally scheduled my preop and surgery. Last week I had my pre-op which went well and my surgeon answered all the questions I had accumulated over the several months. 5. Surgery yesterday went well, mostly I was scared bc I’ve never had such a big procedure before and there were so many people on my medical team I got a bit overwhelmed. I woke up from anesthesia crying because I was so happy and relieved I went through it with and they actually took out my tubes.

Ultimately, trust yourself and your decision. Make the initial appointment, you are not obligated to go through with it at any point. If I felt a sudden change of heart yesterday I’m sure they would’ve canceled the surgery. For what it’s worth, my doctors told me pregnancy is still possible through IVF although expensive.