Baby Left in a Shoebox With 'I Love You' Note Finds Forever Home With Kentucky Couple
One of the most loving things a parent can do is recognize they are not in the position to give their child the life they deserve and give them to someone who can. That’s what one woman in Kentucky did for her son, when she left him at a fire station with a note.
Her actions helped not only her baby, but also enriched the lives of a family looking for another child to love.
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When Brittany Tyler first heard about the boy at the fire station, she started praying he'd come home with her.
Brittany, a foster parent, was scrolling on her newsfeed in May 2022, when she saw the story of a baby boy at the fire station. Under Kentucky’s Safe Infant Act, anyone can anonymously and legally bring an infant to designated locations with no questions asked.
“I started praying that he would be placed with us,” Brittany told TODAY.com “But I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”
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Samuel's birth mother included a note when she dropped him off.
Later, Brittany would learn that the boy’s birth mother placed him in a shoebox with a blanket and handwritten note. It explained why she wasn’t able to take care of him. “At the bottom, she wrote ‘I love you,’” Brittany said.
Brittany’s prayers were answered, and she and her husband Chris were allowed to foster the boy they named Samuel. He is now 20 months old. On December 18, 2023, after 581 days of fostering, the couple adopted Samuel. In joining the Tyler family, Samuel gained two brothers: Judah, 8, and Calvin, 5.
'He's such a cuddly kid,' Brittany said of Samuel.
When Samuel came home with the Tylers, he weighed just 3 pounds after a stint in the neonatal intensive care unit. The couple were chosen because of their history fostering medically fragile children.
“I remember holding him in the my arms and knowing right off the bat, ‘This is my boy. This is the next member of our family,’” Chris says.
He wasn’t the only one who felt this way, Judah and Calvin were immediately taken with their little brother as well. “Everybody lives for Samuel’s hugs,” Brittany said. “He’s such a cuddly kid.”
The couple are also in the process of adopting a daughter.
Brittany and Chris’ growing family is a dream come true after the couple struggled with years of infertility. “All I ever wanted was to be a mom,” Brittany said.
Her motherhood journey won’t end with Samuel. The couple is currently in the process of adopting a daughter as well. “Samuel is obsessed with her. He tries to pick her up like baby doll and she just takes it," Brittany chuckles.
The Tylers do small things to make sure Samuel's birth mother remains a part of his life.
Brittany and Chris want Samuel’s birth mother to know that they love her for what she did. They’ve made efforts to keep her a part of his life in small ways. They’re keeping the note she wrote to Samuel safe for him to read when he’s older and he sleeps with the blanket he was wrapped in when she dropped him off.
"I made it into a teddy bear so that he always has a piece of her,” Brittany said.
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