Meet the Shaneyfelts

infertility

A Unique Perspective of Pregnancy After Adoption

If you’ve been a blog reader for a long time, then you may remember when Dustin and I first started trying to get pregnant–only to find out that I have stage 4 endometriosis and fertility intervention would be the only way. After 2 unsuccessful rounds with a third resulting in a short pregnancy and ending in a miscarriage, we closed that door completely and realized the path God wanted us on was to build our family through adoption.

So hard, but so beautiful.

So this is how I became a mother…

Meeting Harrison for the first time when he was 4 days old.

Meeting Banks for the first time about 6 hours after he was born.

These miracle babies made me a Momma, and I’m forever grateful to their birth mothers for choosing me to be their forever Momma.

Prior to adoption and even after, I had to do a lot of work mentally and emotionally to become content and satisfied in realizing that my body would never carry a child in the way that God had intended. It’s a strange space to occupy when you’re in your child bearing years, yet you have children that you did not physically carry because you couldn’t. But with lots of prayer and emotional work, I found joy in the role that God had called me to fulfill and loved that our family was built through adoption. And our family is a beautiful picture of Heaven when we’re one day worshiping God with all of our brother and sisters of every nation and every tribe.

Well, imagine my utter and total surprise one day in August when I found out that I was pregnant–but also 9 weeks pregnant LOL. Not only had I gotten pregnant without any sort of medical intervention or even trying to, but I was also the mother to a 4 year old and 6 month old. AND Dustin and I had literally just decided that we were good with two kids and Banks would be our last baby. We had our ten year anniversary trip planned and books for summer of 2024 and had already started making plans for our family of 4.

God definitely has a sense of humor, doesn’t he?! ๐Ÿ™‚

(Ignore my really messy room that is NEVER like this–laundry + gathering things for a hospital bag + feeling terrible = a huge mess)

During the last 6 months that I’ve known I was pregnant, I realize that God has given me a very unique perspective. Now I get to know what it’s like to carry a child, and I have been able to develop empathy for both of my boys’ birth mothers as they have felt the boys kick and move. They experienced all of that and still lovingly made the sacrificial choice to place those boys in my arms. What a gift the Lord has given me.

Now Merritt will be joining our family soon. She’s got two very awesome big brothers who she can look up to and who I know will protect her. Even though her two brothers were prayed for and wanted so badly, she is our final missing piece that God knew we needed–even if we didn’t realize it at the time. In all things, God’s sovereignty and timing is always better than what any of us could ever have imagined or planned for our own lives.

So, Shaneyfelt Party of 5…coming soon!

Our Path to Adoption

This is a lengthy post, but stick with it!  This is also told from my point of view.  Dustin’s story is his own and maybe one day he’ll share it.

I have always dreamed of being a mother.  Always.

In fact, as a child I played with baby dolls more than anything.  I once went to school on career day dressed as a mom, and it probably helped that I had a little sister that I could boss around ๐Ÿ˜œ

So when Dustin and I first got married, we agreed to just enjoy our first year of marriage without any talk of babies.  On our first anniversary when we brought it up, we both agreed that we weren’t ready yet.  And less than two months later when I brought up that I might have changed my mind and was ready for kids, Dustin instantly agreed he was, too.  We were giddy at the thought that in a year, we could be holding a newborn baby!  So easy, right?!  We had no idea what the next three years would hold for us.  How was I to know that my body–MY body–was broken?  How was I to know that my heart would ache so deeply for someone I’ve never met and that my arms would ache so strongly to hold a baby?

But if we would have easily gotten pregnant three years ago, would I have known the sweetness of Jesus like I do now?  Would I have rested in His grace and mercy?  Would I have experienced true and lasting joy that’s only found in Christ? 

 I’m sure I would have said those things back then, but the reality is I probably wouldn’t have really known those things.  It was through the suffering of infertility and childlessness that God gave me the best gift He could ever have given me–Himself.  Psalm 34:8 says, “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!  Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”  It was only through my suffering that I was really able to taste and see God’s goodness in my life.  Picture taking a bite of something so wonderful and deliciously sweet that you close your eyes and savor that bite.  That is what God has blessed me with.  HE has been the sweetness in my life.  HE is my strength.  HE is my joy.  HE is my sustainer.  HE is my everything.

For those of you who are going through any sort of suffering right now–whether it’s childlessness, the yearning of marriage, an incurable sickness, etc.–I pray that you find that true and lasting joy is found only in Christ.  And when you do that, your perspective changes so much.

Okay, now onto how we came to the decision to pursue adoption.  Right before we decided to pursue fertility treatments (this was January 2017), we both prayed for wisdom and clarity  in the decision between adoption and fertility treatments.  I prayed Isaiah 26: 3 multiple times a day: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts  in you.”  Ultimately not only did we both feel a peace over fertility treatments, but we both wanted to make sure that going through that process would be both edifying and glorifying to the Lord.  However, we both agreed that adoption was in our future…just after we had a biological baby first.

Right before I went through the 2nd transfer in December 2017, I started to feel like God was throwing anything adoption related in my path.  Basically everywhere I looked on social media, there was an adoption related story or post.  And I want to say around that time my favorite blogger started a private Facebook adoption group that I requested to join because remember, Dustin and I had agreed almost a year before that adoption was in our future.

Fast forward a little…we didn’t get pregnant in December and I really, REALLY started to feel the pull toward adoption.  (I never mentioned any of this to Dustin and kept it all inside.)  But we couldn’t.  We still had one more transfer to go through, so I tried not to read anything about adoption, but it was everywhere!  Before our last transfer in April 2018, my bff, and I registered to go to The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference and while I was registering, I had to pick out three workshops I wanted to attend.  I struggled between the workshop on catechizing your children and the workshop on adoption.  I ended up choosing adoption….you’ll see how this is important later on.

When Dustin and I got the call on April 20th that we were pregnant, I immediately unfollowed and deleted anything adoption related.  (This is where I could throw in a mini-sermon on how I really am like the Israelites in the Old Testament.)  Because we were finally going to have a baby, I felt like I didn’t need to look at anything else adoption related.  It’s like I was telling God, “Nope, not yet God because we’re having a biological baby first.”  I even almost changed my conference workshop from adoption to catechizing your children because I obviously didn’t need the one on adoption. ๐Ÿ˜‰

And then on May 16th, we got the news that we had lost our baby.  That grief was unlike anything I had ever experienced.  And as time went on and doing life got a little bit easier, my heart started to strongly feel like adoption was where God was leading us.   So strongly that the thought of doing another round of fertility treatments made me physically sick.  So I mustered up the courage to tell Dustin how I was feeling because I was afraid that he would think that in my grief, I still wanted a baby so badly that I would resort to any method–thus, making a baby my idol.  And in God’s goodness, Dustin felt the same way that I did about adoption!!  Praise Him for that!  And thank the Lord that I didn’t cancel my conference workshop on adoption because one month after losing our sweet baby, I was sitting in a room listening to an adoptive couple share the beauty of the gospel in adoption.   

So, that’s our story in a nutshell, and that is why we are pursuing domestic infant adoption.  I tell you that so you don’t think that because we couldn’t have a baby that we’re resorting to adoption and that it’s our second choice.  No, adoption has always been in the cards for us. I love this story because you can see God’s sovereignty written over every single detail.  Yes, there has been grief in letting go of my dream of carrying my own children in a pregnancy, but there is so much hope and joy found in letting go of that dream and accepting that adoption is how God wants us to build our family.  There have been times where I’ve wondered why God had us go through infertility for so long, but then I remind myself that if we wouldn’t have gone through that, so many Christ-centered conversations with friends and strangers may never have happened.  Because of my suffering, I have been able to point so many people to God’s goodness in my life.  I don’t take that for granted.

And I’m sorry to constantly talk about our fundraising, but we so desperately need your help to reach our goal financially.  It would be awesome to go into this adoption debt-free!  You can donate through PayPal through this link: paypal.me/DustinShaneyfelt


THANK YOU!!

You can read all of my posts on infertility here.


Losing Our Baby

This post was supposed to be different–a happy announcement and not a painful one.



 I’m writing this post for a couple of reasons though–so many of y’all have been so invested in our story of infertility (I’ve gotten so many random messages from readers letting me know y’all were praying for us), I’ve seen first hand lately how important community is and how God uses community to show us His love, and writing my blog is cathartic.

This story begins on April 20 and below is a result of that….

This was taken after we had received our call from the doctor and we had collected ourselves and stopped crying!  You can see how unbelievably happy we are!

Written on April 26, 2018

How far along: 4 weeks as of Friday, April 20th!!!!!!!!!!  We are over the moon about this precious gift from God!!!  Our due date is December 28th!!

Size of Baby: I immediately downloaded the Ovia app and it says Baby Shaneyfelt is the size of a poppy seed!

Gender: We don’t even care!!  We are just praying for a healthy pregnancy.

Movement: None and won’t be for a while!

Sleep: I didn’t sleep any the night we found out because I knew we were telling our families that weekend (more on that below).  But starting Sunday, the fatigue has kicked in and it is real.  I never thought pregnancy symptoms happened this early, but I really am tired.

Symptoms: This may be tmi but I had no idea constipation was a symptom of pregnancy because no one talks about it!  Yep.  I’m also really tired all the time, and I’ve had a little cramping which makes me feel better because I know my body is doing what it’s supposed to do.  And because I’ve dealt with infertility for so long, I feel like I’ve become really in-tune to how my body feels, so I can tell that I’m pregnant.  I’m bloated and there’s a strange sensation–kind of like pressure–in my lower abdomen.  It lets me know something is there!

Maternity Clothes: Nope!

Cravings/Aversions: Nothing yet, although I saw someone post about fried chicken and I instantly craved chicken fingers one night.  That is so unlike me so Dustin was so sweet and went and got me some!

Missing Most: Caffeine ha!

Nursery: We knew what room the future nursery would be before we built our home, so I’m so excited to see it transform!  We’ll wait until we find out the gender to decorate.

Dustin: Is so excited and the best!!  He’s made sure I’ve had it easy this week and I can’t wait to see him hold our baby!!

Best Part of the Week: Finding our we’re pregnant!  And we had the best time telling our families!  Yes, we told early, but IVF hinders any sort of surprise.  Our families knew about our transfer so we told them early so they could continue to pray for us.

Can’t Wait For: This Friday is my next doctor’s appointment to check my blood work to make sure all of my numbers are doubling like they should!  Then at the 6 week appointment we have our first ultrasound and I cannot wait for that!


…and that’s the only weekly pregnancy post I did.  

Right before our transfer in April

My nightly shot

Because I was an IVF patient, I went to weekly appointments for blood draws and ultrasounds.  My pregnancy test lab results on April 20th were outstanding.  We were so positive this was going to be a healthy pregnancy based on how high all of my numbers were.

Because I wanted to be hopeful, but also cautious, I quit writing the weekly pregnancy posts.  I figured I would pick back up at 12 weeks and we had planned on announcing our pregnancy between 8-9 weeks–which would be today.

Two days before we reached the 8 week milestone, we received the news at our doctor’s appointment that we lost our baby….the baby we prayed so hard for.

Devastated doesn’t even begin to describe how we both felt.  As we sat in the doctor’s office to discuss a d&c, all I repeated to myself was “God is good.  He is still good.”  That profession of God’s character was something I had said so many times before to people when discussing our infertility that I knew it was of the upmost importance to remind myself of His goodness in that moment.  Even if I didn’t feel it.

Two days later on the day I would be 8 weeks, we arrived at the hospital at 6 AM for the d&c.  I was so numb all morning until the anesthesiologist asked me how far along I was.  I cried when I got back to the operating room and the sweetest nurse held my hand and rubbed my forehead until they put me to sleep.  I cried when I woke up in recovery and remembered what had just happened.  I cried when they wheeled me back into the room with Dustin.



Immediately God used His people to show us how loved we were.  And instantly I began to see how important Christian community was and why God had created it.  People brought us food, wine, flowers, gift baskets, gift cards, and told us they were praying for us.  I saw more than ever how perfect Dustin and I are together.  I have leaned on him in my grief and he has been so patient and loving with me.

Thank you for sticking with it and reading this entire post.  Yes, this is a very sad post and the pain is real, but my hope is that you’ll see past that and see that our hope remains in Christ.  As Christians, we sometimes have to remind ourselves of God’s truth instead of listening to our emotions.  David cried out in the Pslams, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.  He dew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.  He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” (Ps. 40: 1-3)  Life isn’t easy, but we know we don’t go through life alone.  My prayer is that whenever you experience suffering–and you will–that in your grief, you’re able to praise God for who He is.

**I also want to mention that I had so many people (who didn’t know we were pregnant) text me on Mother’s Day telling me they were praying for me.  God knew I needed that because it was a couple of days after Mother’s Day when we found out we lost our baby.  I am so thankful for those people who took time out of their day to text me because I had no idea I would be needing those prayers.

I’ll be back to blogging soon.  I had thought about taking time off like I did after we found out we were pregnant, but I miss the community.  I’ve made so many friends from blogging, and I miss the interaction.  I know I’ll also need the distraction this summer since my summer will be much different than what I had planned on it being.