How One Newsroom Story Led to a New Life

From Reporter to Mother

It was a crisp October morning in 2000 when I arrived at the television news bureau in Idaho Falls, Idaho. A police sergeant I knew called with an urgent tip: a man collecting aluminum cans from dumpsters nearby had found what he thought was a doll. Looking closer, he realized it was the body of an infant.

I watched as officers stretched crime scene tape across the gravel alley and detectives gathered around a yellow dumpster and a funeral home van waited at the end of the block. As I stood behind that tape, I stopped thinking about my live shot. The situation hit close to home – my husband and I had been trying for a baby and had just been told we would never conceive.

"Who could feel so desperate that this seemed like the only option?"

This wasn't just another story I was covering; it was a moment that changed everything. As I watched a detective climb into the dumpster and hand a small bundle wrapped in towels to a man who placed it in the van and drove off, I couldn't help but wonder how someone could find themselves at such a low point.

The Birth of a Law

A few days later, while interviewing the young woman's father, he mentioned something I had never heard of: a baby "safe haven" law. He asked whether things might have gone differently if his daughter had known she could surrender her baby safely at the fire station blocks away.

I contacted Idaho State Senator Bart Davis, whom I had interviewed many times. He took the idea and ran with it, and I kept reporting as the bill moved through the Idaho House and Senate. In the spring of 2001, Idaho's safe haven law was signed at a fire station in Idaho Falls.

I was covering the story when then-Governor Dirk Kempthorne called me to the front of the room, handed me one of the signing pens and told me my fingerprints were all over the law.

From Law to Love

Two years passed. Then the same police sergeant called with very different news. A woman had given birth to a baby girl at the hospital and left a handwritten note surrendering her under the safe haven law. He knew my connection to the law, but also knew we desperately wanted to adopt.

I left messages for our adoption caseworker all afternoon. No one called back, and we went to bed that night believing the baby would go to another family. The next morning, as we left for work, the phone rang. I listened to my husband answer questions. A little girl? Bring a car seat? You need a baby name?

My grandmother Lillian had died six weeks earlier, and we had decided that if we ever adopted a girl we would name her Lillie. We gave the hospital her name and drove there. She was beautiful, bright-eyed and weighed 5 pounds, 3 ounces. An hour later we carried her out and took her home. I like to say I became a mother in a phone call.

The Long Journey of Adoption

Lillie always knew she was adopted. When she was little I explained that my tummy was broken and a kind woman I called her "tummy mommy" had kindly shared her with us. Safe haven surrenders are anonymous by design, and I assumed that was all we would ever know.

Years later an unexpected DNA test match led us to her biological mother, Laina. Lillie was 16, and I told her she could meet Laina whenever she was ready. A few weeks later, Lillie was ready. The mother who gave up her baby 16 years earlier held her daughter again through tears.

Laina has since come to Lillie's graduation and her 18th birthday, and Lillie has met several half sisters.

Building a Better Future

Safe haven laws are now in all 50 states. That's the good news. My concern is that too many people still do not know about them. The laws also vary widely, including how many days after birth a baby may be surrendered, making it even more important that a parent in crisis understands the law and their options.

Most of all, I want education. Imagine if every student in grades 7-12 spent five minutes a year learning about the safe haven law in their state. They would grow up knowing that if they, or someone they know, ever faced a crisis with a newborn, there is a safe and legal option.

No baby should be left in a dumpster, a restaurant bathroom or outside a truck stop because someone did not know help existed.

Continuing the Mission

I now serve as Director of Media Relations for the National Safe Haven Alliance, which runs a 24/7 crisis line. Surrender is not always the answer. Sometimes a mother who calls the crisis line wants to keep her baby, and we help her find the support and resources she needs to be that baby's parent.

Twenty-six years ago I stood behind yellow tape staring at a dumpster, wondering who could feel so desperate. Sometimes I am still asking that question. I will continue working to make sure everyone knows there is another option.