A Florida firefighter says God helped him and his wife to start their family after nearly ten years of trying to have a baby.
The firefighter, who has chosen to remain anonymous to protect his family’s privacy, was on duty in Ocala, FL on January 2. At 2 a.m. he heard the alarm go off at the Safe Haven Baby Box located at the fire station.
“To be honest, I thought it was a false alarm,” the firefighter told TODAY.com.
When he opened the box he saw a healthy baby girl wrapped in a pink blanket.
The Safe Haven Baby Box allows someone to safely and anonymously surrender a child legally – no questions asked.
“She had a little bottle with her and she was just chilling,” he recalls. “I picked her up and held her. We locked eyes, and that was it. I’ve loved her ever since that moment.”
The firefighter and his wife would eventually call the baby girl their own and name her Zoey. But first, they had to go through the adoption process.
After completing an initial medical examination of Zoey at the station, the firefighter was required to take her to the hospital.
Doctors at the hospital encouraged him to leave a note inquiring about the possibility of adopting the infant.
“I explained that my wife and I had been trying for 10 years to have a baby. I told them we’d completed all of our classes in the state of Florida and were registered to adopt,” he said. “All we needed was a child.”
He then called his wife to tell her about the possibly good news.
“I was like, ‘Don’t get too excited yet,'” he had expressed. “My biggest fear was that the note I wrote wouldn’t stay with Zoey and she’d be gone. It was a very stressful few days.”
Zoey spent 12 hours in the NICU for observation after the hospital discovered she was not born there.
The firefighter and his wife later learned that the baby’s umbilical cord had been tied off with a shoelace.
By January 4, the firefighter and his wife brought Zoey home. They adopted her in April.
“The way I found her… This was God helping us out,” he told TODAY.com
The new dad told the outlet he is sharing Zoey’s story to give her mom some closure.
“We want her to know that her child is taken care of and that she’s loved beyond words,” he shared.
Zoey is now six months old and is as active as can be.
“She is doing very well and reaching all her milestones,” her father said.
Zoey is the first newborn surrendered to the Safe Haven Box at the Ocala location since its installation in 2020.
The device, which is temperature-controlled and features a bassinet-style bed inside, easy for retrieval, is the only one in Florida.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes Founder Monica Kelsey thanked Zoey’s mom at a press conference the day Zoey was surrendered.
“We want to address the parents who legally surrendered this infant. And right now I’m going to talk directly to her or him,” she said at the time. “Thank you. Thank you for keeping your child safe. Thank you for bringing your child to a place that you knew was going to take care of this child. And thank you for doing what you felt was best.”
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