Over here at Lifetime, we love to read (and share!) heartwarming adoption stories. So we were thrilled to see one of our adoptive families featured on the website Love What Matters!
Florida adoptive couple Stephen and Shasta’s adoption story is certainly a unique one. When they adopted their son through Lifetime two years ago, she had given birth to their daughter just three months before. Today, we’re sharing their story of expanding their family through a combination of fertility treatments, foster to adopt, and domestic infant adoption, which in the end, Shasta says is exactly what she dreamed of!
So let’s start their story from the beginning. As a child, Shasta always knew she wanted to be a mom someday, and was inspired by her own devoted mother. She grew up on a ranch in Florida, and first met Stephen on a blind date. The pair became the best of friends, fell madly in love, and have never been apart since! And when they got married, Shasta instantaneously became a mom, as Stephen already had two teenage children from a previous marriage. As Shasta puts it, “I never had to wonder what kind of father he would be because he was a package deal…I didn’t just get one bonus kid but two.” The couple grieved miscarriages, and then decided to move forward with their plans to adopt.
“We specifically chose our agency, Lifetime Adoption, based on the fact they offered lots of support for the birth moms, before, during, and after the adoption, which was very important to me considering the sacrifice they were making for their children.” Shasta shares in the Love What Matters article.
Birth mother support and education have always been our focus at Lifetime Adoption. After all, without birth mothers, families formed through adoption wouldn’t be possible! And Stephen and Shasta’s compassion for birth mothers shined through in their adoption profile, a booklet created for birth mothers to learn more about them.
In it, Stephen and Shasta wrote, “We have prayed for you and your child and we can’t wait to meet you both!…If you choose us, we will raise this child with all the love that we have and they will be treasured forever. We will share our values on faith, family, friendship, understanding, and love with this baby. We will provide a safe and loving home as well as all of the support and understanding anyone could ever want. We will teach our child to be proud of you, where they come from, and who they are. We are open to emails, phone calls, pictures, letters, social media contact, and visits if that’s something that you want and we are committed to treating you with the love and respect you deserve.”
After completing everything needed to adopt and waiting to be chosen, the momentous occasion of getting “the call” was a moment they would never forget! For a waiting family to hear the words “I have an expectant mother that has chosen you,” is often the beginning of a new part of the adoption journey.
As Shasta recounts, “…one day in April, I was sitting at my desk when I got a call from Stephen. Breathless, he said, ‘Lifetime has been trying to call you. There’s a birth mom in the office right now that wants to talk to us. She has a 10-week old baby boy. He’s in foster care, but she wants to place him for adoption.’”
Click to read the Love What Matters story in full:
“Couple surprised by pregnancy while adopting brothers,
‘It’s exactly what I dreamed’”
“Couple surprised by pregnancy while adopting brothers,
‘It’s exactly what I dreamed’”
Shasta blogs about her motherhood journey on theeverywaymama.com and talks with other moms about the highs and lows of motherhood on her podcast, Every Way Mama. Stephen and Shasta maintain an open adoption with their son’s birth mother, and speak to his birth grandma almost every week on Facebook Messenger. “It’s an honor to be able to give her a bit of peace in knowing how happy, healthy, and beautiful they are,” writes Shasta in a recent post on her blog, “Why Open Adoption is the best thing for our boys.”
Are you thinking about adoption? We’d love to help you get started on the path toward parenthood! Apply online for free today.
Heidi Keefer is a Content Creator for Lifetime Adoption and has over 15 years of experience in the field of adoption. An author of thousands of articles and social media posts over the years, Heidi enjoys finding new ways to educate and captivate Lifetime’s ever-growing list of subscribers.
Heidi has a keen eye for misplaced apostrophes, comma splices, and well-turned sentences, which she has put to good use as a contributor to Lifetime’s award-winning blogs. She has written and published hundreds of adoption articles which explore the various facets of domestic infant adoption today.
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