This week, The Hutter Family shares their sweet new addition, Gavin Tate, and the beautiful journey that brought them together from across the globe.
Tell us about your family!
Hello there! I'm Cynthia and married to Kyle. We’re both 40ish and met as teenagers while attending the same church youth group down on Long Island. We were married 21 years ago and moved upstate to South Glens Falls in 2003. Together we have built an incredible life!
We have 6 children… Hannah (23), Rachael (20), Moriah (19), Elisabeth (17), Landon (9) and Gavin Tate (2). We are blessed to live in such a beautiful area. I always compare our Lake George summer living as a “postcard” and our Adirondack winters as a “snow globe”. As we raised our family, we made many memories camping locally with trips to Moreau Lake or day trips to Sacandaga. Tubing on the Battenkill River is also a fun favorite! Since the girls are so close in age we tried to do things that would include all of them.
Someone told me years ago that if you blink, you might miss their growing up years. That is so true. Now they’re teenagers and our 2 oldest have moved out. The older I get the more I realize that the saying is true - the days are long but the years are short. Our kids are our greatest treasure and the greatest legacy we leave.
On Adoption
When our girls were very young we began parenting children in need through the local foster system. In the last 15 years we have had many children come through our home. Through our agency, Berkshire Farm, we are trained to work through trauma with the children in our care. We foster mostly infants and toddlers but even the youngest of babies has shown trauma related to abuse and neglect. Our desire was to make a small difference in our corner of the world by being a safe haven for these little ones until reunification. Throughout our foster care journey we have loved on babies who have Down syndrome, autistim and who are medically fragile.
The question we get most is, “How do you love them and then give them back?”. People tell us all the time that they could never do it. But that’s exactly what these babies need - someone to love them through their storm and emotionally invest in their lives, no matter what the outcome is. Adoption is always a possibility when there’s a foster baby in the house but to ensure we were able to make another little one a family member FOREVER, we chose the route of international adoption.
The Journey to Gavin Tate
In November of 2018, a friend of a friend shared a picture of a bald baby boy. The baby was listed on Reece’s Rainbow, which is a website that shares special needs children that are available for international adoption. In the picture, the baby had a smirk on his face as if he knew a secret. The description on his listing said “Male. Down syndrome. Born 2018. Malformations of cardiac septa.” All I thought was that he couldn’t be more perfect. I stared at him for days. There was something about him. I showed Kyle the picture of “Calvin Henry” (name used to list him) and told him my intent to bring him into our family. Kyle’s initial reaction was a resounding no.
It took two months (and lots of prayer) to convince Kyle that this boy was indeed a Hutter. We committed to adopt “Calvin Henry” in January of 2019. With a $35,000 ransom, we began to brainstorm ways to fundraise. It was then that we realized we are blessed with an amazing community here in South Glens Falls who rallied around us in support of our adoption. Friends and businesses put together a spaghetti dinner with a 50/50 raffle and silent auction. We held two cupcake fundraisers and local restaurants generously held Dine to Donate nights where a portion of their sales were donated to our adoption fund. We also applied for grants. It was incredible that throughout our adoption process we were never held back from lack of funding.
The paperwork for international adoption is overwhelming. The information you have to provide makes you very transparent and they dig into every aspect of your life. We had to compile a home study and have fingerprints and background checks. They use a fine tooth comb going through finances to make sure we could provide for another child. It took us five months to complete our home study then an additional three months for our “golden ticket” which is USCIS approval. All these papers together is called a dossier. Once our dossier was complete we sent it to Ukraine to be submitted.
In February of 2020 we flew to Ukraine to meet our boy and formally accept his referral. It was an incredible feeling holding him for the first time. He was living in an orphanage in Kyiv, Ukraine. This baby, born all the way on the other side of the world was destined to be mine. We returned to NY after a week in Ukraine and waited to hear about next travel dates for court to make him ours forever. Then the COVID-19 pandemic began and borders closed. Our court date in Ukraine was reschedule 3 times due to the prolonged quarantine. While we waited, we prayed for his health, safety and that he’d remember how very much he was loved by us. On June 15th the borders finally opened again. We traveled back to Ukraine for court and on July 7th, 2020, Gavin Tate Hutter became ours forever. We brought him home on July 18 to a neighborhood waiting with open arms to meet this boy they’d only seen in pictures.
On Life with Gavin
Now that he is home, like childbirth, the pain of waiting is a distant memory. He has acclimated to family life incredibly well and he is thriving! Gavin is social and loves to wave to everyone he meets. We are thrilled to watch him experience life in America. He has only been home for 3 weeks and he’s already mimicking sounds and using sign language to communicate. And that smile that we saw in that first picture? We see it more and more every day.
This baby boy, born and abandoned due to a diagnosis of Down Syndrome now has a mama’s arms to hold him and a daddy’s shoulder to ride on. He has four sisters and a big brother that adore him. He is no longer an orphan but a beloved son, cherished brother, grandson and nephew.
We can never erase his first 2 1/2 years that he spent in the orphanage but we can hope that from this day forward we help him embrace life and enjoy the front row seat we have to seeing redemption first hand. Adopting one child won’t change the world, but for that child, the world will change.
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