A baby left at a fire station has been adopted by the firefighter who found her! Now named Zoey, the newborn was dropped off at Florida’s Ocala Fire Rescue Fire Station No. 1 in January. She was the first child to be surrendered at their Safe Haven Baby Box, a secure, temperature-controlled device that sounds an alarm within the station. When the firefighter, who asked to remain unnamed, responded to the 2 a.m. alert, he immediately fell in love with the baby girl inside the structure.
“She had a little bottle with her and she was just chilling,” he told Today. “I picked her up and held her. We locked eyes, and that was it. I’ve loved her ever since that moment.”
As it turns out, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect for the firefighter and his wife. They’d been trying for years to start a family to no avail. When he dropped the little girl off at the hospital, the first responder left a note explaining that he wanted to adopt her.
“I explained that my wife and I had been trying for 10 years to have a baby,” he said. “I told them we’d completed all of our classes in the state of Florida and were registered to adopt. All we needed was a child.”
When the firefighter told his wife the news, however, he warned her not to get her hopes up.
“I was like, ‘Don’t get too excited yet,'” he says. “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.”
Thankfully, the hospital did get the note, and Zoey was released into the firefighter’s care just days later. In April, the couple was finally able to adopt their baby girl. They have a message for the child’s biological mother, whoever she may be.
“We want her to know that her child is taken care of and that she’s loved beyond words,” said Zoey’s new dad.
People reports that the Safe Haven Baby Box is a growing movement across the U.S. that allows a parent to safely surrender a child they cannot care for. So far, there are 148 boxes in the country, and 40 more on the way, according to their website.
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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