Global Courant
A firefighter in Ocala, Florida, was working a night shift at the station in January when an alarm woke him up at 2 a.m.
He recognized the sound immediately. A newborn baby had been placed in the building’s Safe Haven Baby Playpena device that allows someone to safely and anonymously hand over a child – no questions asked.
“Honestly, I thought it was a false alarm,” said the firefighter, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his family’s privacy. But when he opened the box, he discovered one healthy baby wrapped in a pink blanket.
That baby would become his daughter, Zoey.
Zoey is now 5 months old.Courtesy of Ocala Fire Rescue Station
“She had a bottle with her and she was just chilling,” he said. “I lifted her up and held her. We looked at each other and that was it. I’ve loved her ever since.”
The firefighter and his wife had been trying to have a baby for over a decade and the wheels in his head started turning.
“I didn’t call my wife right away, because I didn’t want to wake her up, but I knew she would be on board,” he said of his plan. He would take the baby to the hospital and ask if he could adopt her.
At the hospital, the firefighter, who is also a paramedic, wrote a note and left it with Zoey.
“I explained that my wife and I had been trying to have a baby for 10 years. I told them we had completed all of our Florida state classes and were registered to adopt,” he said. “All we needed was a child.”
When the firefighter finally spoke to his wife, she began to cry.
“I was like, ‘Don’t get too excited just yet,'” he said. “My biggest fear was that the note I wrote wouldn’t stay with Zoey and she’d be gone. It was a stressful few days.”
Zoey was placed in the station’s Safe Haven Baby Box on January 2. On January 4, she was at home with the firefighter and his wife. The couple adopted Zoey in April. The firefighter said he later learned from the hospital that the baby’s umbilical cord had been tied with a shoelace.
“The way I found her… this was God helping us,” he said, adding that it’s hard not to cry when he tells the story.
He said he’s sharing the story because it gives Zoey’s birth mother “some closure”.
“We want her to know that her child is being cared for and loved more,” he said.
Baby Zoe.Courtesy of Ocala Fire Rescue Station
There are 148 Safe Haven Baby Boxes in the US and 31 babies have been safely given away, the organization said. website. The devices are temperature-controlled and feature crib-style beds.
Founder of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, Monica Kelsey spoke at a press conference in Januarythe day Zoey was surrendered.
“We want to address the parents who legally gave up this child. And now I’m going to talk to her or him directly,” she said at the time. “Thank you. Thank you for keeping your child safe. Thank you for taking your child to a place that you knew would take care of this child. And thank you for doing what you thought was best.”
