Ruined woman recounts cheat boyfriend who killed baby with his STI and made her infertile

She had always wanted to have lots of kids so when she found out she was pregnant she was over the moon.

The 28-year-old Shoni Greenwood thought the news would bring her closer to boyfriend James but instead it revealed some of her lover's dark secrets.

It turned out that rather than a loving father-to-be, James was a love rat who had put her health at risk by having unprotected sex with another woman.

Shoni, from York, was devastated when doctors told her she had lost the baby at a check up and she was delivered another blow when they revealed she was carrying the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

Cheating James had passed on the disease after bedding a woman behind her back – and the nasty infection had ended up killing Shoni's baby.

Scans revealed the Shoni’s fallopian tubes were blocked and severely scarred - meaning she will never again conceive naturally.

Now Shoni wants to warn other women about the dangers of the silent infection that ruined her life.

She says: “I will never forgive James for what he has done to me.

"Not only did he cheat on me, but his infidelity has shattered my happiness and dashed my hopes of having a family with my new partner.

“If he had told the truth from the beginning, the STI could have been treated earlier and I would be able to conceive naturally.

"He threw away everything for a moment of passion and my life will never be the same again.”

Shoni met James in October 2008 on a night out in York and when he text her the next day the pair instantly hit it off.

She said: “He was great and really fun and we fell in love really quickly.

"Everything was perfect for a few months but things quickly turned sour.”

When he put a lock on his phone and shied away whenever he got a text, Shoni suspected he might be hiding something.

She said: “Whenever I asked him why he was being so secretive, he just said I was paranoid. So I stopped bugging him in the end.”

One night after an argument, her boyfriend stormed out of Shoni’s flat and didn’t come back until the next afternoon.

He promised her he had just gone to his own flat and slept there and they quickly made up.

Over the next few months, Shoni noticed that he was leaving for work earlier and making more effort with his appearance.

She said: “When he started putting aftershave on and doing his hair, I thought it was a bit odd.

"He’d never made an effort to look good before.

"But I knew how angry he got when I accused him of cheating, so I kept quiet.”

It wasn’t until May 2009, that she found out the truth – he had slept with another girl behind her back.

She said: “I was devastated when I found out he had played away, especially because it was on that night in January and he had been lying to me for five months.”

Although her boyfriend promised he had used protection, Shoni didn’t believe him.

So concerned Shoni forced him to go for an STI test to make sure he hadn't caught any nasty diseases.

She said: “When he got his results back, I couldn’t believe it. Not only had he been unfaithful, but he had caught chlamydia from her.

“I went for a test and as I suspected, he had passed it onto me.

"It made me feel so dirty to think I’d had the STI for five months and been totally unaware.

"It really got me down.”

Both Shoni and her boyfriend were treated for the infection and, although she was hurt by his betrayal, they carried on the relationship.

Trying to get the romance back on track, they started trying for a baby and were over the moon when Shoni found out she had fallen pregnant at the end of March 2010.

But in May, she was rushed to hospital with heavy bleeding.

It was then she was given the earth-shattering news, that it was an ectopic pregnancy and her baby would die.

She said: “Hearing my baby would never see the world was so distressing, I’d been trying for so long and although I already had a daughter from a previous relationship, all I’d ever wanted was to have loads of kids.”

It was during the scan that the specialist found the chlamydia had gone untreated for so long it had destroyed Shoni’s fallopian tubes.

She said: “I was already grieving for my baby when the doctors gave me even more bad news.

"The STI had affected my tubes so badly that they were severely blocked and heavily scarred.

“They told me I would never have children again and my only option in the future would be IVF.”

Shoni was sent home to wait for her baby to become unattached from her fallopian tubes.

She said: “It took a week for the baby to pass, it was horrible.

"My boyfriend didn’t come to any appointments with me and I had to go through it all alone.

“I didn’t think I would ever be able to forgive him, but we’d been through so much together I tried to give the relationship another go.

“Knowing I couldn’t conceive made me so depressed because I felt like a man.

"Everything I’d ever wanted had been taken away from me and I spent days in bed, crying.

“We were arguing all the time because I was so hurt by what he had done.

"Whenever I brought it up he would shout and scream at me, telling me to ‘let it go’.

"It started to drive a wedge between us.”

She stuck with him despite arguing every day because she was terrified that no other man would ever love her because she couldn’t have children.

Incredibly, the couple stayed together until January 2014 when Shoni had finally had enough.

She said: “I’d never forgiven him for stopping me from having children and the tension and spite was now too much to bear.

“I’d met Rob and he was so respectful and caring. It made me realise that I didn’t need to be in a loveless relationship.”

Leaving her ex in February 2014, Shoni says it was the best decision she ever made.

She said: “Although I’ll never have children, I now know I can be happy in a relationship even if I can’t become a mother again.

“Rob has shown me such amazing kindness, and he doesn’t judge me or blame me for being infertile.

“Every day, my infertility is at the back of my mind and I’ll never forget what my ex put me through. But amazingly, Rob has made me feel like a real woman again.

“Of course we would love to have children one day, and if that means saving up the £7,000 for IVF then we will do that.

"But for now, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

“Before I had an STI, I had no idea how devastating it could be.

"Left untreated it is so dangerous and can take everything away from you.

"I would rather have served time in jail than live with the life sentence that chlamydia has given me.”

N.b. James’s name has been changed