BOISE, Idaho — This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press.
Zak and Kimberly Cutler desperately wanted a family.
The Cutlers were married in 2006 and struggled with fertility for three agonizing years. Finally, Zak, a contractor, suggested they look into adopting.
The paperwork was filled out the next day. Four months later, the Cutlers adopted baby Owen.
Adoptive families and child service employees seek to increase awareness for the need for adoptive families for children and teenagers in the foster care system during the month of November, national adoption month.
On Nov. 17, A New Beginning Adoption Agency hosted a pizza party for parents of adoptees and their children ages 8 to 15 to celebrate national adoption month and raise awareness for the You Are Not Alone program. The YANA program teaches parents and children to communicate better with each other and supports families in adoption. The program will be relaunching in January, with a group for 8 to 12-year-olds and another for 13- to 15-year-olds.
At any given time in the United States, there are 2 million people waiting to adopt an infant, A New Beginning Adoption Agency Executive Director Stephanie Pearl said. Within that 2 million, there are 50 families waiting to adopt at A New Beginning Adoption Agency in Idaho, Pearl said.
As of June 30, 2022, which was the most recent data available, there were 357 kids in foster care waiting to be adopted, Stephanie Miller, program specialist with Idaho's Child and Family Services said.
Like the Cutlers, Shay and Michael Pendergrass wanted children, but up until four years ago, never looked deeply into adoption.
“I wanted to baby," Michael Pendergrass said. "Adopting older kids wasn't even anywhere on the radar."
Many parents interested in adoption share those feelings, which often isolates kids in the foster care system. But Shay, who had previously worked as an adoption social worker, was interested in foster care and potentially adopting a foster kid.
"My heart was going in that direction," she said.
After some deliberation, they decided to look into adopting a foster kid and started taking foster adopt classes. As they were finishing up their home study, Shay found a Wednesday's adoption video of teenage brothers Josh and Tyler. They put in an inquiry about the boys and received an email back within 48 hours. By Friday, they were having conversations about meeting them.
"Things just took off from there," Michael said. "Even the committee was having a hard time keeping up."
After the first visit with Josh and Tyler, Shay said she knew they would be a family. When families foster to adopt, the kids are required to live with the family for six months before the adoption can be finalized. Once the adoption was finalized, the love in their home in Boise was visceral, Michael said.
"Adoption isn’t as much about attachment as it is about connection. We spent a lot of time focusing on connecting with these boys from day one," Michael said.
The adoption finally gave 18-year-old Josh and 15-year-old Tyler, who had been in the foster care system for 10 years, a permanent home. Before the adoption, Tyler said, he had been left by 13 families.
"I finally feel like I'm cared about," Tyler said. "Other families left instantly. Being through so many families as fast as I was makes you feel like you’re not worthy of anyone."
Adoption finally gave Michael and Shay something they had wanted for a long time: a family.
"My young adulthood was not rough by any standards, but I had a lot of heartbreak. I didn’t know if I'd ever get to this stage in my life," Michael said. "It means the world — it means everything. These boys are my everything. I feel like I’ve had them my whole life and they’ve only lived with me for three and a half years."
Two years after the Cutlers adopted Owen, they submitted paperwork for a second adoption — 11 months later, they adopted their son, Luca.
Then, out of the blue, they got a call that Owen's birth mother was pregnant, Zak said. She wanted them to adopt her son so that he and Owen could be together, and the Cutlers did just that.
Two and a half years after adopting Ryker, Zak received an email from A New Beginning asking for open adoptive families. He forwarded it to Kimberly, and she filled out the forms. During each adoption process, there were a few potential adoptees, but they were all boys, Zak said.
"I just felt like we had a girl out there," Zak said. "When we got the call for Lorelai ... I cried."
He knew it was his daughter, Kimberly said. Three years later, the Cutlers received a call from Lorelai's birth grandparents, letting them know that she had a little brother, Pierce, in foster care.
After six months of fighting to get Pierce out of foster care, he was placed with them and has now been adopted by the Cutlers, who live in Boise. Both Pierce and Lorelai were miracles, Zak said, with drugs and other circumstances surrounding their births.
"Pierce is a legit miracle," Zak said. "Before we met, they told us he has cerebral palsy and he may never ever walk ... I was panicked."
But Pierce has better balance than the other four kids, Zak said.
"He doesn't walk," Kimberly said. "He runs and climbs."
"We have two sets of siblings in a household," Kimberly said. "That probably doesn't happen very often in these situations."
Now a family of seven, with kids ages 2 to 13, Kimberly and Zak said every adoption was worth it: worth the money, worth the time and worth the work to raise a family.
"People often say, 'oh I can’t believe what you did for those kids,' and I don't feel like we did anything with these kids," Zak said. "They saved us."
This article originally appeared in the Idaho Press, read more on IdahoPress.com.
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