My partner dumped me after two failed rounds of IVF

Instead of supporting her through the emotional rollercoaster of IVF, Sophie*, then 44, was devastated when Thomas*, 41, dumped her after she was unable to get pregnant.

Trigger warning: pregnancy loss

It was love at first sight the night Thomas* and I met. Because his pics on the dating website were slightly out of focus I had no idea what to expect. But then in walked this good-looking, brawny guy with braces on his teeth and I knew in my heart he was 'the one'.

By our third date, we'd made the decision to forgo birth control and start a family. We got along so well, had the same sense of humour and loved sports. Also, I’d recently left my former boyfriend after a two-year relationship because he didn’t want children. At the time, I was 41, Thomas was 38, and we both realised that if I wanted to be a mother, it was now or never.

That November I moved into Thomas's house in the country with plenty of room for a nursery, as well as a huge garden, and over the next 18 months, we tried (and tried) for a baby.

"What do you think of the name Paul?" he asked over breakfast. "Or Matilda, if it's a girl?"

But despite having constant sex; taking my temperature upon waking and calculating when I would ovulate; and even turning to traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, every month, without fail, my period would appear.

Facing disappointment

On those rare occasions when I was late, I'd buy a pregnancy test and anxiously wait for the second blue line to appear. My breasts felt swollen, I'd convince myself, and the smell of a friend's cigarette smoke made me nauseous. Surely, I was expecting. The negative test results, however, confirmed otherwise.

"I think we should try IVF," I said. The tick tock of my biological clock wasn't slowing down and I figured it was our best, if not last, resort.

So one week before my 43rd birthday, we made arrangements to travel to a state-of-the-art facility in Prague for our first round of IVF. When the doctor rang to inform me that I wasn’t pregnant, I felt like a failure. Then, in October, I returned to Prague for a second round only to find out shortly before Christmas that, again, I hadn’t conceived.

With each soul-destroying outcome, I was left sobbing at the unfairness of it all. Thomas was just as stunned. One night, we sat in the living room, both shaking our heads in disbelief, struggling to understand why neither round had worked.

Physically, there was nothing wrong with us so there was still hope I might get pregnant. Even so, while on holiday in Mallorca, we agreed to stop trying as the stress was killing any sense of passion in our relationship. Instead, we'd plan our future without children. It was heartbreaking, albeit the right thing to do, I thought.

Out of the blue

Then shortly after we returned home, without warning, Thomas ended things. He simply decided that after three years he no longer loved me.

"What if I'm pregnant?" I asked, demanding to know. But, as I was about to find out, it wouldn't make an iota of difference.

"You'd be a single mum," he replied bluntly.

I was speechless.

The year before, in 2011, I'd been dealt a series of painful blows, including the untimely deaths of two close family members, one of them being my father, and a botched surgery on my parathyroid gland that left me with barely a voice for seven months. Plus, on top of that, Thomas and I had spent over £8,000 on IVF – and for what?

I was at my most vulnerable, completely and utterly broken.

His timing couldn't have been any worse.

All that summer I cried. I'd thought Thomas was going to be there for me through thick and thin. But he hadn't been. He couldn't be. He didn't have it in him.

Six months later, Thomas met a woman half my age and they went on to have a baby girl born 11 weeks prematurely. I felt as if I'd been punched in the gut. It took all I had not to fall to pieces. Then when his daughter turned two, a friend told me, Thomas ended things with the woman, leaving her on her own to raise his child.

A different future

My desire to have a baby died the day Thomas said goodbye and, truth be told, not having a baby turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

Since then I've moved into a beautiful flat, made new friends, got a Master's degree and travelled to places like Dubai, Egypt and Bali. I've gone on crazy Tinder dates, had an affair and fallen in love.

Although I'm single now, I've learned that when one door closes, another one opens to reveal a world of unimaginable opportunity, which is how I feel about all the goodness that has come my way since Thomas dumped me.

"See it as a blessing in disguise," a friend said to me after the breakup.

And, to my surprise, it turns out, she was absolutely right.

If you would like support with fertility issues, visit the Fertilitynetworkuk.org.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Read more: All of Yahoo UK's How I was dumped stories.