First Responder Adopts Baby She Found Left in Safe Haven Box

A newborn left in a Florida Safe Haven box has found her forever family after the firefighter who found her officially adopted her, local media outlets reported.

According to WKMG-TV, the girl, identified only as Baby Zoe, was rescued at the Ocala Fire Rescue headquarters, six months ago.

After an alarm went off notifying the station of a drop-off at its Safe Haven box, a firefighter, who said he and his wife struggled with infertility for several years, found the infant with a shoelace tied to her umbilical cord, the outlet reports.

Baby Zoe was immediately taken to the hospital and soon after, the firefighter and his wife made the decision to adopt her.

“It wasn’t real until I got the call that I could go in there with her in the NICU,” the adoptive mother told WKMG.

“We’ve been trying for almost a decade to have a family, and everything has kind of not worked out for us. So we are like, ‘Don’t get our hopes up, don’t get our hopes up.’”

But when it appeared Zoe would officially be their daughter, she was in shock, she says.

“Everyone was just in disbelief, honestly, that she was hand-delivered to us almost and that everything had kind of worked itself out to where we could bring her home two days later,” she explained, per the outlet.

The adoptive mother also recognized the sacrifice Zoey’s birth mother made.

“I think it’s very respectable, what she did,” she told WKMG. “We really felt in our hearts that we wanted to let the birth mom know in some way, shape or form that she is safe, she is happy, and she is very loved.”

The Florida Safe Haven Law allows for mothers to surrender their newborns less than one week old to any Safe Haven facility recognized by state law, anonymously and without fear of prosecution.