From the day she got her period, Shannon Schear wondered if she'd ever be able to have a baby. Without fail, her period was miserable: heavy, irregular, extremely painful. By the time she got married, she had multiple visits to the ER for pain and ruptured cysts under her belt, and she and her husband weren't sure having a family would be in their future.
Her story has a happy ending: Although her path to motherhood didn't look the way she expected, Shannon and her husband found themselves fostering two boys, N., and M. And in 2015, they made it official, adopting both boys and becoming a “forever family.” Below, Shannon shares her journey with What to Expect.
Shannon’s Story
Because of my history, in 2014, my OB/GYN decided to do a pelvic ultrasound and found numerous large complex cysts. She recommended surgical removal due to their size and the risk of ovarian torsion. At the first surgery, she discovered that my pelvis was riddled with endometriosis—tissue similar to the uterine lining that grows outside the uterus—and the cysts were actually endometriomas (also cutely called 'chocolate cysts' because they are brown in color… which just made me hate chocolate). She cut out as much endometrial tissue as she safely could, but she told me that one of my ovaries was fused too close to my bladder and freeing the ovary was too risky given the proximity to my bladder and ureter. She then dropped the bomb on us: Given the state of my pelvis and the location of the ovary, my chances of getting pregnant were very low and if my husband and I wanted to conceive, we needed to start trying before any of the rogue tissue could grow back.
It was now or never, so we started trying immediately. We tried without getting pregnant for six months and then because of my age (32) and my medical history we were referred to a fertility specialist. What followed was nearly two years of heartbreak after heartbreak. We did five cycles of the fertility drug Clomid, followed by six rounds of IUI (intrauterine insemination), every one more painful than the last. Nothing worked and I took the failure very personally. My husband had a million strong swimmers but my ovaries were so wrecked they couldn’t even produce one good egg? That was one of the hardest things for me to deal with, feeling like it was all my fault we couldn’t have a baby.
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Then, in February 2015, came The Talk. Our doctor told us the only option left was IVF (in vitro fertilization). We couldn’t do it. Financially, we were already more than 10K in debt because our insurance didn’t cover any fertility treatments. Physically, my body was in so much pain from all the treatments and I was worn out. And then there was my mental state. The fertility drugs made me an emotional wreck—I was a crazy person consumed by shots, ovulation kits, supplements, and peeing on a stick. I was just done. My husband and I made the heartbreaking choice to stop trying to get pregnant.
But I couldn’t stop dreaming about having children.
The previous Christmas, while we were in the midst of our fertility treatments, my best friend told me about a woman she knew who was fostering a 20-month-old boy named N. and was looking for an adoptive placement for him. We had met and played with him, but we’d been too caught up in our own journey to consider adoption at the time. It became even more complicated when N.'s bio mom surprised everyone and gave birth to another baby boy, M., in December. The baby was born with a couple of congenital heart defects, as well as exhibiting signs of a chronic heart condition. He was in the NICU on and off for sub ventricular tachycardia.
N.’s foster mom took in M. as well but at 64, she was nearing retirement and as much as she loved the boys, she simply couldn't commit to adopting then. She wanted to find a home that would take them in but where she could continue to be in the boys' lives. In February, after that devastating talk with our doctor, the time finally felt right to think about it. I told my friend to have the foster mom call me.
When we first talked, I felt an immediate connection with her so when she asked me to take the boys, it just felt right to say yes. We would start with a transition period; since we already knew N., we would be considered a “kinship placement” so the boys could live with us while we took the foster care and adoption classes we needed to be certified foster parents. We passed the background checks and home study almost immediately and the boys were transitioning into our home within a week.
It was a transition period for all of us, an overwhelming time but so beautiful. Friends came out of the woodwork to give us cribs, diapers, blankets, and other baby stuff. My sisters and my best friends put together a baby shower for me. My boss at the time allowed me to take a month of maternity leave to bond and get to know the boys.
There was tough stuff too, though. My husband really struggled with parenting at first. It was a huge change going from just us to suddenly having two kids under two. It was a complete change of lifestyle because with adoption comes opening your hearts to the kids, but also your home to social workers, therapists and case managers. We are both professionals, so it felt strange to have every aspect of our lives scrutinized, even down to our dogs. (We had three pitbulls and a doberman so they needed to make sure the dogs were of a good temperament).
The kids had a difficult time too adjusting to the new situation, especially at first. N., then just 22 months old, had already endured a lot of abuse and abandonment in his short life from his biological parents. I don't think I went to the bathroom or showered alone for the first two years as he needed to be with me or near me at all times. He had a lot of separation anxiety and still does. We do play therapy and get a lot of amazing services to support him as he starts to work through a lot of these hard feelings. M. struggled less, as he was just two months old when we got him.
We got through those extremely difficult first few months by working together, as a family. Then, on my husband's birthday, April 9, 2015, the transition period officially ended and the boys have been our forever family ever since.
Looking back on the entire process of creating our little family, there’s not one thing I would change. However, I do wish that I had been better educated about how trauma affects development and made sure that we were prepared to provide all that is needed for children who have ACES (adverse childhood experiences). Parents of children of trauma must be prepared for a rollercoaster of emotion as these kids struggle to heal and form a healthy attachment.
People always ask us how we could adopt kids with “problems” and my response is always this: Your biological kids could have similar issues. We don't get to choose our children’s emotions or personalities. There are kids in this world who just need our love and if you have it to give, that makes all the difference.
Adoption from foster care is not a simple process and I’ve spent a lot of time processing everything that happened. I have mixed feelings because my happiness was born out of tragedy. It was hard to be so happy to be parenting these boys, loving them and watching them thrive, but feel pain and empathy for their biological parents as they struggled through the severance of their parental rights. It is also tragic because my boys have other siblings who were adopted by other placements and as hard as you can try to keep those connections, different families have different paths and struggles. In addition, I have to make a conscious effort every day to remember that I am raising children who are a different race from me and I need to honor their journey, their heritage and identity. All of this is such hard but necessary work.
Our story has a poignant postscript: Shortly after the adoption was finalized, I ended up getting pregnant naturally...only to miscarry at 16 weeks, due to complications of my endometriosis. Even that, as tragic as it was, feels like it was meant to be though, as I don’t know how my boys would have done with a sibling at that point. Our family isn’t perfect but we’ve got something better than perfection—each other. And whatever it took to bring us all together was worth it.
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