Beyond the Box
Beyond the Box with Monica Kelsey is a powerful podcast dedicated to raising awareness, educating the public, and advocating for change in the fight against infant abandonment. Hosted by Monica Kelsey, Founder and CEO of Safe Haven Baby Boxes, this podcast dives deep into real stories, expert insights, and the life-saving impact of Safe Haven laws and baby box programs across the country.
Each episode features compelling conversations with firefighters, legal experts, healthcare professionals, policymakers, adoptive families, and even mothers who have used Safe Haven Baby Boxes. Together, they shed light on the challenges, victories, and ongoing efforts to provide safe, legal, and anonymous surrender options for parents in crisis.
From heartwarming rescue stories to policy discussions shaping the future, Beyond the Box is a must-listen for anyone passionate about saving lives and supporting vulnerable infants.
Beyond the Box
Redemption Through Abandonment: The Safe Haven Baby Boxes Story
Every revolution begins with a moment of clarity. For Monica Kelsey and her friend Pam Stenzel, that moment happened in Cape Town, South Africa, where they encountered their first "Baby Safe" – a simple device allowing desperate mothers to safely surrender infants they couldn't care for. That discovery, sketched on a Delta napkin during their flight home, evolved into Safe Haven Baby Boxes, now operating in 22 states across America.
This deeply personal conversation reveals how two adoptees transformed their own stories of redemption into a movement saving countless newborn lives. Monica and Pam candidly discuss the philosophical battles they've fought since day one: prioritizing a child's right to life over debates about heritage and medical history. As Pam shares, "My biological mother was 15 years old and was raped. She was in foster care at the time... I was the poster child for abortion." These personal perspectives powerfully frame their compassionate approach to women in crisis.
The friends explore critical distinctions between confidentiality and true anonymity, challenging the traditional Safe Haven model that requires face-to-face surrenders. Through poignant stories of mothers they've counseled – from the woman who YouTubed how to cut an umbilical cord to another who walked miles to avoid surrendering in her own neighborhood – they illuminate why anonymous options matter. Despite persistent opposition from adoptee rights groups and regulatory hurdles in various states, their mission remains unwavering: baby first, mother second, with support for whatever choice each woman makes.
Whether you're interested in adoption advocacy, crisis pregnancy support, or simply the power of friendship to spark social change, this conversation will leave you contemplating what other "crazy ideas" might transform lives. As Pam wisely reminds us about their decade of work: "God did not call us to be successful, He called us to be faithful." That faithfulness has created a legacy of lives saved and mothers supported through their darkest moments.
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This is Monica Kelsey from Beyond the Box. We are in the studio today with Pam Stenzel, one of my best friends and also the person who has been with me the longest through this journey, minus my husband of course.
Speaker 1:I have to give him some credit at least. But we were in Cape Town, south Africa, together where we seen the very first Baby Safe. And on the flight back from Cape Town, south Africa, on a Delta napkin we hand drew this organization that is now in 22 states across this country. So welcome to Beyond the Box.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so good to be with you and in person right here. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:It is so good. It is so good. Well, uh, you had a couple hours drive to get here today. So, um, so I can't bring you back like once a week for updates or anything like that.
Speaker 1:But, um, but you know, so we were together the very first time that we seen the very first baby set. So let's, let's kind of go back to that time because, um, I don't think any. Either one of us understood the impact that our lives would would have, or the projectory of our lives from standing at that church in Cape Town, south Africa, where there was a baby safe in the side of the wall and we were looking at each other going. What in the world is this and what were your thoughts when we first seen that?
Speaker 2:Well, it was kind of I, I, we had you and I had talked, before we even went to South Africa, about the whole safe haven law concept, never thinking you know the the baby safe or anything like that, just just because of your own personal story and and and how much a part of the abandonment was part of that and and and really thinking you know, you know, maybe God has this concept of you really reaching out and you know, maybe God has this concept of you really reaching out Because we had safe haven laws in our country but no one really knew about them and you kind of helped me.
Speaker 1:You really helped me Not to cut you off and say this, but I learned that I was abandoned as an infant and the first person I called was you, and I was literally standing in my driveway at my house trying to navigate through the emotions of learning this and you were like you just got to suck it up. I mean not in those words, but it was like you know, this is what Christ has for you, Monica. You just need to find your lane now and your purpose.
Speaker 2:It's redemption, and I think you know we're going to talk about that more today. But God has the ability to take very tragic, painful circumstances and redeem them. And when you shared that with me, I knew because I've been involved in the pregnancy help movement and working with women in unintended pregnancies for 30 years that the safe haven law existed, but there was not enough emphasis, there was not enough. You know, no one knew about it. It doesn't do any good to have a law that there's no focus on. So I thought, you know, maybe this is before we even got to South Africa, and really South Africa, that trip was the time where we really got to know each other, because I didn't know you that well.
Speaker 1:I mean, you just invited me on a trip and you, I know, hey, you're going to sleep in the same room with me. Am I going to regret this?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I just invited her to like really hang with me for two weeks and uh and it was. It was such an amazing trip. God had his hand all over that. And fact that the Baby Safe was the very last stop After. I already watched you do crazy things like jump off the cliff of a mountain not knowing how you were going to get back.
Speaker 1:That is a whole other episode, folks. We will talk about that next. That's crazy.
Speaker 2:So we're walking in and both of us are kind of what is this? Because it said baby on it.
Speaker 1:Baby Safe yeah.
Speaker 2:And the pastor telling us that they had had so many abandoned babies just right around his own church and that some young boys had found, saw a garbage bag moving and found this little infant placenta, still attached, little boy.
Speaker 1:And it was later named Moses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the family that adopted him named him Moses and we'd I just we were like this is amazing. And people, this was before the drop box came out right, so so there was not a lot of awareness anywhere really, especially in the US, of these kinds of things well in the drop box.
Speaker 1:just to be clear, the drop box was the very first reality of infant abandonment in the world, where Pastor Lee from Seoul, south Korea, highlighted abandonment and showed that he put a box in his house and so that hadn't even been public yet. Is what? The Dropbox? So what you're talking about? This is before all of that.
Speaker 2:I mean that's why you're like. You know, obviously after that happened and that documentary came out in the US about Pastor Lee, a lot more people you know it was in people's minds yeah.
Speaker 2:But, but this was well before that, and so, and I think, well, and you encountered this, monica, at the very beginning, you know, even though I'm sure your husband was encouraging, I was encouraging All of us thought you were crazy. So it was kind of one of those things where you're like you, monica, you go do it, and what's so astounding is you did that. That's what's so amazing, and I don't think people fully understand the what you had to go through, especially in those first years, to to not give up and to not say you know what, it's not worth it.
Speaker 2:Everybody thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I am. Let's just go back to talking nice about safe Haven laws and hoping, you know, hoping we can educate people enough to to to be willing to walk into a fire station and look at someone that they probably know and and hand their in in crisis and be able to do that. So um it it. It really is a miracle. So it was a privilege for me to be apart from the beginning and and really to just watch, watch your tenaciousness, watch. You say I'm not giving up there. You know there's a reason for this. I'm doing this for these moms, I'm doing this for these babies and um and uh, you know I'm not, I'm not taking no for an answer.
Speaker 1:And, and you know I'm not, I'm not taking no for an answer, and and that's why we are where we are today. Well, and we, you know, we've never changed our focus. Our focus has always been on baby first, mom second. Yeah, you know, the safe haven law was enacted to save babies from being thrown in dumpsters and trash cans, and so we have to focus on baby first, but mom has always been second to us, and so our focus has never changed. Those are still the top two things that we worry about when we get a call on our hotline. Okay, so we get back from Cape Town, south Africa. I come with this drawing of this basic box on a Delta napkin, take it to a builder and then he builds me this box and you see it for the first time. Did you lose your mind? Like? Did you like? What is she thinking like? Because it was like basic, like there was no electronics in it.
Speaker 1:It was a shell of a box yeah, that I was taken to the state house to try and get them to understand the concept. It wasn't hey, this is the box we're going to use. It was, hey, it's going to look something like this and you know, people were taking photos of it and stuff like that. And then all of a sudden it's on the you know, the today show and stuff like that and we're like, wow, that box. We probably should have done a little bit more.
Speaker 2:We should have made it look prettier. I don't know it could be have decorated it, I'm not sure, um, but but it was. It was the prototype you were able to actually carry around and bring right in. You know, we couldn't do that today. Um, it was fun, fun. A couple of years ago we had kind of an open house here and and JJ and I were he put all of the different like stages of the boxes out so that we could all kind of see from the beginning and and to what it is today, and it was pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:It is, it really is Okay.
Speaker 1:So we get Indiana, you know we put the very first baby box in the state of Indiana and then we put the very second, the second baby box in the state of Indiana. A few days later you were both of them and and then we just kind of waited and started the fight, which has been the fight from the beginning. It's never changed. We're still fighting the same people, the same arguments. Some change a little bit, but most of them still go back to the root cause of adoption.
Speaker 1:You know the people who hate adoption or think that children deserve to know their biological parents. They deserve to know their medical history should trump everything else, and I don't agree with that. I think your right to life trumps everything else. If you can get your information about your biological parents, that's great too, but we should focus on saving the lives of these kids first instead of worrying about who their parents are or that their biological parents can can raise them. And you know that. I've been a medic a long time. I've went into many houses and looked at kids in homes and thought it is going to end up really bad for these kids. There are parents out there that should never be parents and.
Speaker 1:I'm very vocal about that. I I've said that from the beginning, and so you know people that say that these children deserve to know their heritage, that they should be able to be raised by their biological parents. Does that tick you?
Speaker 2:off well. And, monica, the reason that you, that you and I even met, the reason we were together, is because of our stories. Right, and I had flown into indiana to speak on behalf of, at the time, senator Murdoch, who was running for Senate, who said that children who were conceived in rape were planned by God. And of course, people took that and twisted those words to say God planned the rape. And I think when those arguments get made, they forget that there are real people they're talking about behind that. And my biological mother was 15 years old and was was raped. She was in foster care at the time, or well, I don't know, at the time of the rape, but at the time I was, she had me, and and I was the poster child for abortion. Right, I was the poster child for abortion.
Speaker 1:right, I was the poster child for 15, raped in foster care.
Speaker 2:And in the 60s to be in foster care, you know, was a big deal. Today it's like oh yeah, lots of teenagers are in foster care, but in the 60s you know there had to be some serious stuff going on at home right and so, and I was, uh, born in Michigan and so, um, you know the the law at the time was that abortion was not legal, even in the case of rape, and so, uh, I, my life was spared, um, but I've always been grateful to her for for not just your life my birth mom, but she gave me my family.
Speaker 2:So I have this amazing family that I just got to spend some time with in Michigan this weekend. But I'm the oldest of eight kids, seven of us adopted. My brother, just younger than me, is the bio one, the real one. He was an accident. He was an accident. I sent him the birthday card, dear brother, on your birthday. Just want to remind you I was planned, you were an accident, he was an accident. I sent him the birthday card, dear brother, on your birthday. Just want to remind you I was planned, you were an accident.
Speaker 2:That's how we we tease each other, but but I mean just amazing parents. My parents were just amazing human beings, right and um, I always knew I was adopted. That was, in fact, I was probably the kid that, because it was such a positive thing, like in my family, like before I went to school, was like you know, I'm Pam and I'm adopted, like I'm really cool. The rest of you are not as cool as I am and it probably took a few years of elementary school to realize that not everybody was in the world thought, well, thought that was as cool, as I happened to think it was Right.
Speaker 2:And um, and I remember we two of my brothers are from Korea and I was probably fourth or fifth grade when my brother Kim came to be with our family and at the time, with international adoption, you had to. Well, now you have to fly to the country, to, to, to adopt internationally, but at the time we just went to the airport picked up another child at the airport, and so I was telling all my friends were going to the airport to pick up my brother Like doesn't everybody get
Speaker 2:their brother from the airport and so well.
Speaker 2:And in my family, my mom's one of 12, nine girls and three boys, and six of the girls had some struggles with fertility and being able to get pregnant, and so there are like there's like 89 grandchildren and almost 30, I think it's 35 to 36 of us are adopted, which I have seen adoption work for everywhere, from infant adoption to international adoption to out of foster care as well.
Speaker 2:So you know, that's my, that's my background, that's what I know about adoption, and and realizing that there's probably zero way I would be alive today if everybody took the attitude that biological mother needed to raise me. And I love her, I pray for her, I, I, she, she took on all the pain in order to give me my life and my family, and I will forever be grateful. She's a hero to me. But could she have parented me at 15 in foster care in the family situation that she was in? And the answer is probably not, and literally I have spent my life walking alongside women experiencing that unintended pregnancy because I firmly believe that what my birth mother needed in that moment of trauma was someone to love her, someone to walk alongside her, someone not to abandon her and and be there for her as she walked through that very, very difficult time, do you?
Speaker 1:feel like this is something that you need to do because your birth mother didn't have that. Do you feel at peace with working with them? You know?
Speaker 2:I don't know because unfortunately I never got the opportunity to meet my biological mother, so I don't know who was there for her Right. You were able to meet your birth mother and kind of get the story. But we all know we've met women who who didn't do well after um and and who struggled and, and I've met women who, um, had abortions after having raped, having been raped in their life, took a terrible trajectory and drug use and drinking, and just weren't able to to to get over that trauma and then come to find out that that was the only child they ever conceived. They were never able to have children. And so one of the things that we do see walking alongside women who experience pregnancy as a result of rape, that, no matter what they choose if they choose life, if they don't choose abortion and they choose to parent or they choose to make, they choose life if they, if they don't choose abortion and they choose to parent or they choose to, to make an adoption plan, that that's that process is healing for them, that that that child becomes healing, and I think the world looks at it like well, it's going to be a constant reminder of, of the trauma. The reality is they will always have a reminder of that trauma, child or not. You know, the child isn't a constant reminder and the reality is the child helps them see how God is able to redeem the most traumatic and difficult, painful circumstances in our lives, if we let him do that, or we can just internalize the trauma.
Speaker 2:So I think what we're seeing with this, first of all, the reality is, is adoption. Is adoption is not this great, wonderful thing and everybody should be placing their child for adoption, any more than the safe haven baby box is this amazing thing and all women, no matter what going on, just go bring your baby to the box. No, this is not that. This is an attempt to take very painful crisis and women at probably the lowest point of their life and giving them an option that allows for redemption. Adoption isn't a choice for everybody. Parenting is not a choice for everybody, but it's definitely a better choice than the alternative and that's having your putting your baby in a dumpster, putting your baby down, flushing it down a toilet, in the garbage at the convenience store, walmart or you know. It's way better than those, than those decisions.
Speaker 1:Do you remember and this was probably, I don't know back in 2018, 2019, you were still running the hotline, you still were answering every call and we had worked with a mom to surrender and then she changed her mind, and this was before she had surrendered. She had changed her mind because her mom said you know, you know, don't do this, I'll help you, I'll be there for you. What do you need? And then, when the child was two years old, do you remember this? We got the call back from this exact same mother. That mom was no longer helping anymore and baby went into foster care and she wanted to place for adoption because she was actually asking if she could surrender this child now under safe haven, and that just brought up a whole nother issue of people trying to talk these parents out of placing for adoption. And then, two years down the road, we deal with a mother that really never wanted to be a parent in the first place, right?
Speaker 2:And adoption. Making an adoption plan would have been the better point from the beginning, right, and I dealt with that in the pregnancy health movement forever. I had a young girl I'll never forget it way back. This would have been in the 90s, when she knew that she wanted to play. She's very mature. It takes a tremendous amount of maturity to make an adoption plan even an open adoption plan right, because you have to put all of your needs aside and do what's best for someone else. We live in a culture that's selfish. It's me, me, I want mine, mine, mine and it's my. You know, adoption is the opposite of that. It's I'm going to take on all the pain here to do something best for someone else.
Speaker 1:So, excuse me, I can really get it out there Okay.
Speaker 2:So I have this young high school student. She was a senior and she was wanting to place and I had been counseling with her for a couple of months and then it was Christmas and I didn't see her over Christmas and she came back in January for a counseling session and, uh, her I said how would you? How was your Christmas? You know what'd you get? Mom bought her a high chair, a stroller. My mother, which is grandmother now, bought her all this stuff for the baby and I'm like what is she thinking? And I'm like I need to talk to mom.
Speaker 2:So I got mom in and so my problem wasn't biological birth mom, my problem was grandma. Well, I, you know that's my grandchild, and all the selfishness. Well, there's nothing you can do at that point. I mean, you know she was too influenced by her mother and so chose to parent and didn't choose to place. And literally within six months I got a call from mother, the grandmother, going I need you to see that you know this client again, because she's, you know, not stepping up and taking responsibility and it's all on me and I wanted to slap her this way to Sunday and I'm like this was she was getting ready to make the best choice for her. She wanted to be a police officer. She was wanting to go to do all these things, and, and the grandma stepped in. And then when was wanting to go to, to, to all these things, and, and the grandma stepped in. And then, when it got to the reality of it, the reality of day-to-day parenting, grandma didn't really want to do that. Right, and it's devastating.
Speaker 2:And I, and I think the thing is making an adoption plan again isn't for everyone, but for some. They want what's best for their child that they know they cannot provide and they're willing to take on that. Now, an open adoption is great if you can do that, because then you get to meet that family, choose that family and have ongoing relationship with that family. It's different You're still not parenting. It's different You're still not parenting, but it's it's not the scary way adoption was in the sixties, where babies whisked away and nobody knows anything about anyone, and you know that that can be very traumatizing.
Speaker 2:But, um, but adoption can look. You know today is is a very beautiful thing and we have so many couples now who can't have children. Infertility is skyrocketing for many reasons and a lot of it is, you know, delaying childbirth until they're in their 30s. And then you know what. You know all of these reasons why you know, I think a generation kind of thought well, I'll get my career, I'll do all of these things, and then when I'm 35, I'll just be able to miraculously have children. And it's like, yeah, life doesn't always work that way.
Speaker 1:Well, and you know, you look at adoption and you look at these young girls and the fact that people are trying to talk them out of doing something that they want to do. You know that's one of the things that we do at Safe Haven Baby Boxes is we don't talk them out of doing. If they want to do a parenting plan, we're going to support the plan.
Speaker 1:If they want to do an adoption plan, we're going to support the plan. If they want to surrender, we're going to support the plan, and it's like they're going to choose what's best for them. We should never be telling them what's best for them or what we would do. I hate it when people say, well, I would do this or I wouldn't do this, it's not up to you, you're not in this situation and good count any of those of you who are therapists or understand counseling.
Speaker 2:The reality is that's exactly what we're supposed to do. You're not supposed to tell someone, you're supposed to help them. Look at all of the options in front of them. We use a thing called the Ottawa Decision Guide, which is amazing, and it says what are your options in this particular crisis? And there's three options. And this wasn't made for the pregnancy, an unintended pregnancy. It was made for people making end-of-life decisions with cancer or serious things. But there's three options there and we let her first put the options down and we say you need to now look at all of those options and what closely meets your value system when you dream about your future and the future for your child. What do you want and which one of these options will get you there? Right? And that's why it kind of frustrates me when I hear things like we've heard this even from some of the safe haven community where, well, she just needed a cell phone and then she made a decision to parent.
Speaker 1:That drives me crazy.
Speaker 2:I'm like what in the? She made a decision to parent. That drives. I'm like crazy. What in the? So? So she is going to surrender a, a child, because she can't pay her cell phone bill. So you come in and pay her cell phone bill for a month or two and now she's perfectly capable of parenting.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings up a whole nother, a whole nother problem. Because how many times is she going to now come back and want somebody to pay this or somebody to pay that, only so that she can parent? And again we have to look at. Well, let's go back to the. So, the stats, the safe haven movement.
Speaker 1:They don't care for us because we put out truth, we put out facts. One of the things that they are constantly saying is that when given the option by a first responder, given them their option. So a woman walks into a fire station and says, hey, I want to surrender my child, they talk her out of it. Okay, which that's a whole other show, but they talk her out of it and then she changes her mind and they say 26% of women. This is what other people in the safe haven movement say. What the other people in the safe haven movement say 26 of women who show up to surrender their child change their mind when given help to parent or or safe surrender.
Speaker 1:I want to know where the stats are. Where are the stats that are showing 26 of women walking into, first you know, fire stations and hospitals where they change their mind? It's's not there. There's no stats. Nobody is keeping stats on that and it's complete, it's a lie. And that's what just really irritates me. Is they expect us to put out all of this data and everything that we have? How many babies, how many drug addicted babies, blah, blah, blah. But yet when the people who have been around for 25 years put something out, they don't even bat an eye. They just believe it and think that it's true.
Speaker 1:And there's no way. 26% of women walk into a fire station wanting to surrender and they leave with their child. And then another thing when you look at just that part alone, do you really want a woman that walked into a fire station to surrender their child leaving with this child? No, it's like this child's going to end up abused or dead. That Leaving with this child? No, it's like this child's going to end up abused or dead. Yeah, that's what's going to happen, because we talked her out of a decision that took her so long to make.
Speaker 2:Well and there's your key words took her so long to make. They're assuming that on the spur of the moment, she decided to walk to a fire station. You and I both know that's not true, right? Whether they talk to us or not, especially Gen Z, good true, whether they talk to us or not, especially Gen Z, good morning, it's not 2001. Gen Z has done all of their homework, they have looked at everything and by the time they get to that point, they've made that decision, and so it's absolutely. It can't be true. It's not true. In fact, one of the moms we dealt with, who did a face-to-face surrender at a hospital and I'll never forget it she said she was so nervous about it and I counseled with her for a good solid two months after the surrender because she did the, you know she did a little play with.
Speaker 2:Do I come back and get reunification? But she had really. You know she made a huge decision. She took months before to decide and she just got so fortunate that the hospital that she chose that the nurse that she first encountered because she birthed the child and then walked into the hospital. So this wasn't like right after giving birth, as you think some hospitals are, but she came into the hospital with her days old baby and the the nurse was an adoptive mom and the nurse knew exactly the right words to say, didn't shame her, didn't try and insinuate at any level that she was a bad person for doing this, but just thanked her and said you know, this is the most selfless thing, and how much.
Speaker 2:And talked about how much she appreciated the birth mother that had that had placed her own child for adoption as adoptive mother, how much she loves them, how much she and I think one of the things these moms always worry about and it would probably be true of moms who make an adoption plan as well will my child someday, you know, hate me for what I did? I get that question a lot. Yeah, and the reality is adopted children who fully understand what option B would be know that that was the most selfless act of love that your biological parent could have done for you, that they loved you so much that they were willing to give you what they did not have to give and want you to have a better life. And it's how any adopted kid, especially younger than me, at this point, cannot feel the unbelievable love that went into that it's, it's, it's huge. And so I said no, I, I in fact one mom I was on the hotline with.
Speaker 2:It was like five o'clock in the morning and I'm just laying in my bed, just she just needed to vent, I just needed to talk to her.
Speaker 2:And finally I said can I just tell you cause I don't insert myself into counseling very often, but once in a while, when it's been a while and it's been kind of a long session and she's dumping a lot I said let me just tell you, as an adopted child, how I feel about my birth mom and how she's my hero and I will forever be grateful for her, and that I've prayed for her since I was a child, uh, that she would find peace and and and certainly find Jesus, cause I would like to spend eternity with her Right.
Speaker 2:So, um, this, I mean I could hear the bawling on the other end of the phone and that's just what she needed to hear, because these women love their children, they want what's best for them and know, because of whatever crisis is going on in their world, it just can't be them right now and that's why it is hard. It's hard to listen to people who've never been a part of the triad at all whether adopted a child, whether they were adopted or a birth parent talk about adoption at all, because it's like you know nothing about what you're talking about. But then it's also hard to hear adoptees talk about all of their trauma and live in their trauma.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that. Let's let's break that down, because that's one of the things that I get hit on so much on. Tiktok is as much of a broad audience as I have. There are haters that hate adoption and they are always saying every person that is adopted has trauma. You have trauma, monica, you just haven't realized it yet or you're hiding it or whatever, and it's like hang on a second One. You don't know me, you know you don't know my story. And two not every adoptive person adoptee has trauma, and so let's touch on that. What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's a little bit of the millennial into Gen Z.
Speaker 1:You know we're well'm, I'm the very top of the gen x, I'm in the middle. You're right there in the middle of gen x we're a different breed, right.
Speaker 2:So the millennials, which are my children, and then gen z. Now we have, we have made victimhood like the greatest badge of honor yeah.
Speaker 2:so everybody has to find their victimhood and everybody has to live in their trauma and and it's, it's just it's, it's actually it's very wearing on us older people. We're like you know, get over it. Everybody has trauma. Let me just be clear with you. There is no person on the face of this earth who is going to live life minus trauma. It's going to happen.
Speaker 2:So the question isn't about your trauma. The question is, how do you deal with it? Do you want to live forever as a victim, live in your victimhood, or do you want to see victory over that trauma? Do you want to see how God could use that trauma to actually do something good with your life? Certainly, you know my beginnings affected me, there's no question. You can't say that it didn't. It affected the trajectory of my life and what I chose to do with my life and how I chose to walk alongside women experiencing unintended pregnancy. So, in theory, it was. It's not nothing, it but to to live in it like it's this wound that, oh, it's the inherent wound that you will never heal from. You will forever be, you know, disassociated with, with your biological parents. Now I know nothing about, um, my heritage, I heritage. I know minimal, uh, information about my birth mother, um, who was irish and english and blonde and blue-eyed, and I didn't turn out farthest uh thing from you yeah, and, and on my, on the dad's side, it just said american.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what that means. And, um, now I could choose. I mean, if knowing my heritage, my ethnic heritage, was like we're going to play identity politics, like knowing you know what my ethnicity is was like the most important thing in my life. There are technological ways I could find that out. I've chosen not to. I chose to open all of my records when I turned 19 in the state of michigan, sign everything away so that if she wanted to know who I was, that she had permission from me to do that. Um, I and I opened myself up to meeting her and she's never reached and never did that and I didn't. I did not personally choose to go further than that.
Speaker 1:Right and that but that's a choice. You opened the door.
Speaker 2:I opened the door for, and part of it was I really wanted. I really wanted to make sure that if there was pain, if she was experiencing pain and and, and she needed to know that I was okay and that I was grateful to her, she needed to hear me say those words Thank you for my life and for my amazing family that I wanted to say that to her, I wanted her to hear that and you know. So I did all of those things, but I've never really had the desire to find out and I actually like not knowing. I mean, I get to be whatever, like I'm sure I've got more Indian in me than Pocahontas and so I can claim whatever that I I'm. I get a lot of Hispanic, I get a lot of that. They think that my, that I have some Hispanic heritage. I get Italian, cause I'm fiery and talk with my hands a lot.
Speaker 2:But you don't have red hair, yeah Well, so so you can be who you want I can. I can stinking be who I can identify any way you want. So I can be in whatever minority group people want me to be in.
Speaker 1:I can do all of it. So in today's world, that's a good thing. It's a good thing.
Speaker 2:Like I said, I should have probably gotten some more college money. Well, if I could prove a casino somewhere, you know there might be money in that, if I could get the tribe right. But but but it's just silly. You sit here and you listen to their arguments Like you deserve to know all of this about your heritage and where you came from, or dead. So that's what you're telling me, because I don't have my medical history, which was actually the greatest thing going to the doctor. It's like medical history Don't know. Thank you Moving along.
Speaker 1:Don't have to fill all of that out. Let's check her for this. Let's check her for this. Let's check her for this. Cause we don't have anything to base it on. Cause we don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean that's a thousand times better. Yeah, dna testing and genetic testing now to get all of that information you know, without having someone tell you that way and and so I don't understand. It's like you actually are telling me that death a dumpster, you being abandoned by the side of the road, would have been better, or death by abortion would have been better than me living not knowing my heritage.
Speaker 1:Well, and so that brings up another good point. So those are the haters. Those are the haters that have been attacking us from day one. You know the bastard nation is I don't, you know, we'll just keep it at that. They actually opened up a website called StopSHBBNoworg because we are such a threat to their organization and the fact that they think that every child deserves to know their heritage and deserves to know their medical information that they're trying to shut us down. That has been from the beginning, and the further we go, the harder they start coming at us, and now we're dealing with states that are actually almost listening to them. You know, like you know Connecticut. You know, they, they, they have some people from, is it Yale?
Speaker 2:I don't even think it's a research group out of Yale.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so now they're, they're coming on board and stating that you know that these children should know this, and and I'm just, I just sit back and I just think have we lost the focus? Because the safe haven law 25 years ago was enacted to what? To keep babies out of dumpsters. It wasn't for kids to know their heritage, it was to keep babies out of dumpsters. And you know, baby first, mom second. And now it's like no, we're putting mom first, we're putting we're putting mom first.
Speaker 1:And something else that really irritates me and, as an adoptee, this just really really frosts my tail and I have been criticized for this multiple times by coming out with this opinion. But for these women, for these women 50 years ago or 52 years ago I'm 52, that were promised that these children would never know who they are, that, for whatever reason, their family could never know, that they placed a child for adoption, and now we are opening their records, just disregarding what we told them 52 years ago, because the child deserves to know who they are. And so now we have kids that are finding these moms and it is tearing families apart because they didn't know, and I don't agree with that. I think, if you want to know who your biological mother is, do what you did Open the door. Yep, open the door and let the other party come in and say, okay, yes, you know, I do want to. You know further. You know, find this person. But don't just openly give those records to somebody that you promised 52 years ago that you would not give them away.
Speaker 2:Right, a hundred percent. And there was a I had to know in my mind, and I couldn't have known this at 14 or 13, right? This is why you wait till you're an adult to make these kinds of decisions. By the time I was 19, 18, 19, I really realized, you know, my mom was in a bit of trauma at that time and me just barging into her life could very well add to trauma. And so why would I want to? She sacrificed so much for me Just for my knowledge. I'm going to inflict all this more trauma 18, 19 years later on her. I wasn't going to do that, but I also wanted to bring healing, if that's what she needed. So what I was able to do was selflessly. Again, this is all this is. We have lost all empathy in our culture. We we've lost all ability to say everything is me.
Speaker 2:We're so narcissistic. My mother was selfless, my birth mother was selfless and I wanted to be selfless. I said I am going. My need to know does not trump her need to not have to go through more trauma. So I will open my records and if it's a healing thing for her to find me, then I want that, but if it's not, then she needs to keep it a secret. And she didn't.
Speaker 1:For whatever reason, it probably had nothing to do with you. It probably had nothing to do with you. It had everything to do with her trying to navigate through what had happened all those years ago.
Speaker 2:Correct and when you think about the fact. You know, I don't know, but if you've got a 15-year-old, that they're calling rape in foster care, that it could have been a family member.
Speaker 2:It was probably statutory rape at some level, an adult with a child, and yeah, and obviously the family system wasn't healthy. And so I don't know what her life ended up being like, and you and I know, from having worked with women who've gone through that kind of trauma and family trauma, her life may not have gone that well, right, you know, and she, I think my sense, you know now she would be 75 or whatever, so she's probably not alive, but but I wasn't sure that she would even be alive at that. Do you know what I mean? Just because you know their life takes a trajectory that's not always positive If she didn't get the support she needed.
Speaker 2:That's one of the reasons why we support women through this is because we want them to be okay too. Yes, 100% baby. But you can't really help save a baby without helping mom, saving the mom you have to. And so we want to make sure these mothers, whether they made an adoption plan or surrendered, get the help they need, because obviously their life is not in a great place, right, and now we want to make sure that they can thrive and that they can move forward and that they can, you know, accomplish their dreams and all of those things as well.
Speaker 1:Well, and we've talked to many, many women who have either surrendered or had place for adoption. That says the very thing that you know. If, if my family member knows, or if somebody knows, it's going to be devastating for them, and I think you know us as a society, I don't think we should be trumping. You know what she agreed to at the beginning.
Speaker 2:It's her story to tell. Yeah, it's her story to tell, and we give her lots of opportunities to do that. Even the counseling that's offered after this isn't you have to. This is if you need it this if you need us, we're here and you want it Exactly right, and we're willing to accommodate whatever that looks like for you when you're ready.
Speaker 1:Right, many adoptees, I think, get overshadowed on the trauma part of the argument. You know that don't understand what they're talking about, because they have lives like ours. You know I don't have trauma. You know I grew up in an amazing family with two parents that celebrated 50 years together. They were married married for 50, but together for 58. And they were the example that every child deserves to have. And so I think for you and I, when they say every child has trauma, it's like no, no, no, no, no. Don't say every. You can say some. You know you can say some, we'll give you that. You know, we'll give you that. Um, however, you can't put a blanket over every, you know adoptee has trauma Cause it's just not true, right, well, and and and probably we have to clarify ongoing trauma.
Speaker 1:Right, right Right.
Speaker 2:And and a lot of us I mean even you interviewed a young man who was abandoned and now he's a police detective, right, yeah, he probably had trauma, but he didn't have to live in that trauma. It didn't have to define him. My identity is not my trauma. My identity is something way more than that and as a believer in Christ, my identity is in Christ. That's 100% redemption. I love it.
Speaker 2:Ephesians says that we are all adopted into the family of God, right? So when you make your identity your trauma and just live in it, it's devastating. I don't care what trauma right you have, because I said, we all have it. We all have trauma, but it's what you do with it and how you. I mean look what you have done and I think, when, when, um, when we tie, we you titled your book blessed to have been abandoned, and I, I, I really believe this is. This shows you how you can take very painful circumstances and and see something very good come from it.
Speaker 2:The verse in Genesis you like to quote from Joseph when he was talking about you know you meant what you meant for evil, but God's going to do something amazing with that right, and so I think that's the attitude all of us should have, whatever our life circumstances are. And clearly they're not allowing that they're going to live there. And usually adopted kids have trauma because of everybody around them are and clearly they're not allowing that. They're, they're, they're gonna live there. And and usually adopted kids have trauma because of everybody around them when they do and they can't get out of it. Not not because of the inherent thing, and you and I both know, as adopted kids, we, um, when we were little, when we were young, that we had like visions, didn't you be like my birth mother lives in a castle is actually a princess and all of this and and, and I mean even into your young teen years.
Speaker 2:And I, my poor mother, bless her, my, my adoptive mom, who's you know? A saint um I. I'm sure there were times in your teenage angst. I did it where it's like well, you're not my real mom oh, I said that a few times.
Speaker 2:My real mom would let me go out and stay out till one in the morning and smoke and drink with that. You know, yeah, it it's insanity, it's it's, it's absolute craziness. And obviously I think you maturity teaches you that, that that is all a fantasy and life isn't that pretty. And finding your biological parents, you know, probably isn't going to be the fairy tale all the time because there's there's trauma.
Speaker 1:You know, I remember one time my, my mom, I was talking to her and I was not a very good teen. I mean, if she ever sits in this podcast room and interviews me, I'm in trouble, like seriously in trouble. But she told me one time she goes, I thought you were going to end up in jail, that's great.
Speaker 1:You know, I just was one of those rebellious teens that I knew everything, you knew nothing, and I was going to find my biological parents one day. They were going to welcome me with open arms and I was just going to forget about my, my adoptive parents. And it's like, you know, the naive being so naive back then, thinking that that was actually true, and then getting to meet my biological mother and thinking, you know, I mean, she was an amazing person, she really was, but I can't imagine being raised by her, you know, in the situation that she was in and and and. So I am very blessed, just like you are. I'm very thankful that that she chose life for me, but also chose me to give me, you know, the family that I have 100 yeah and you know you don't, and and I think that that's why I'm saying everybody has that.
Speaker 2:You know, terry was probably my biological brother. The one that was the bio child was probably the only one who probably wished he could have said some of those things and had the same. You know what I mean. When you're younger and you're in rebellion, your parents can do nothing right, no matter whether you birthed the children or not. My own children, who I birthed, had know, had their own thoughts about you, know me occasionally, which is it's the way it is. So I think what some of these adoptees have done is they've taken normal stuff that just kids go through and normal parental issues, and then blowing them up out of proportion you know.
Speaker 1:Did you think, though, that, when we first started safe haven baby boxes, that the haters were going to be so bad? Did you really I mean envision the just the roadblock after roadblock from these people that just hated what we were doing?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, I no, I didn't, you know I and I think norm, just normal people, I call them normal people?
Speaker 1:There's really no normal people.
Speaker 2:You can't even imagine that there would be someone who would prefer a dumpster to a child being kept safe, right, yeah? And so, yeah, the vitriol was a little much for me. And then for some of them, I talk about you being tenacious and never giving up, and you don't, which is a good thing, because, because some of these people, you know, are tenacious, uh, some of them are protecting their own ideology, but I think some of them are protecting their money. They're protecting their, their, the, the status quo, the way it is, the way it's always been, the way it's always been, the way it's always been, and and so you know they don't like the, the success, and and, um, and and I think, another thing that some people said to us, I think in the beginning, that's so false. They're like, well, if you put the, if you make it easy, like like somehow this device is making it easy to do a very difficult thing, my friend, um, you know, like all the, you're just gonna get women all every day, they're gonna be there every hundreds of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, it was like you know, you know as as much as we're so happy that a child didn't end up in a dumpster and gets to have a forever family and that's all beautiful.
Speaker 2:Um, it's not that it women aren't just randomly bringing their baby to a box just because we made it easy for them. It's just, it's ridiculous. And again, the concept that the safe haven movement has had for the for the 15 to 20 years prior to Save Haven Baby Boxes that she can walk in and look at someone and then they're going to talk her out of it and knowing that is going to keep people away A hundred percent, and so all we've done is taken that little piece away and given her control over when she reaches out for help. One of our girls still amazes me that I didn't never reached out for help until after the whole surrender process. And, uh, when we, when I spoke with her for the first time in the counseling session, um, I, I wanted her to tell the story because I realized she she told no one that this was a hundred percent the first time that she was even telling anyone that she'd been pregnant, delivered and surrendered, which is very common for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I just let her tell the story. And I was so in awe that this young woman was able to deliver a child alone, with no help, and then we knew that that she had tied off the umbilical cord with shoestrings. I just said you have to tell me. How did you know what to do? I YouTubed it.
Speaker 2:These moms have done every bit of research way before they ever would walk in to you. The other one I'll never forget this mom. This was very early on when we only had a couple of boxes in the state of Indiana and it came from a rural town in Indiana of the call and this mom had just delivered. I could hear babies, so I knew I had a baby on my hands and it was middle of the night and she's like I'm like you got to get to a fire station. She could not get to a box, it was too far of a distance.
Speaker 2:And um, I said you need to, just you can walk in. And I kept telling her you know, we'll call ahead to make sure they do the right thing, we'll prep, we'll prep them, you. And then, finally, that wasn't working. She wasn't wanting to do that and I'm like, just call 9-1-1, just call 9-1-1 and have someone come to you. And uh, that ended our call and I just you had to pray that she did it. And uh, found out the next day that mom had walked over a mile to walmart and then called 9-1-1 because, again.
Speaker 2:It didn't even occur to me here I'm telling her just to call 9-1-1, right, realizing that they're gonna then come to her house, right like hello. And so, um, she goes to walmart and surrendered and they behaved, they did the right thing, the firefighters all did the right thing and the this.
Speaker 2:But police, when you call 9-1-1, everybody comes like not not just one fireman, I mean in his personal vehicle, the cavalry was there and um, and she said one of the firefighters she went to high school with it's a small town people, you, you and, and how they can't, how people can't understand that this is what we're trying to avoid and you know that firefighter will do the right thing and not ever devolve. But it doesn't change the fact that she knows that he knows and he knows that she knows.
Speaker 1:Well, that brings up a good point too Confidentiality versus anonymity. You know the Safe Haven movement 25 years ago. They kept saying it's anonymous. You know it's not anonymous to walk in and face somebody. It is anonymous to not face someone and not talk to anyone, and the only way to do that is through a safety device, which is a baby box, and so that's just one of the things that just really irks me.
Speaker 2:Confidentiality and anonymity two different things, they are two very different things and, honestly, we've done a very poor job of educating uh first responders and hospital staff, uh overall on the safe haven law. On, I mean, our experience over these last seven years have shown that most fire departments that we call I mean you had a really bad one once, but you know they don't know what to do they don't understand a lot of.
Speaker 2:They're like you're, we're what, you have a woman that's going to walk in and hand us a baby. I mean, they're absolutely clueless, and so you can just imagine if they have not been trained. And so we passed a bunch of laws without training, without actually doing what needed to be done. On the other end, it is. It astounds me.
Speaker 1:Yep, and you know today, uh, because of safe haven baby boxes and because we recognize that at the very beginning, more firefighters, hospital staff and police officers are educated on the training of, of taking in even a surrendered infant being handed to them Correct, um more today than what they have ever been trained in the last 25 years.
Speaker 2:Yeah for sure. And the other thing we did not only did we train the first responders because we're out there and you're hearing about it, but you and I both know that people talk about why would you do a press conference? Anonymity on all of these issues. But you and I both know that that mom is hanging on every bit of information because she wants to know, she wants to hear. In fact, I had a mom tell me, just just flat out, tell me, that she was watching for you know, and she'd driven quite a distance, um, for the box. But she was waiting to hear and to hear you say thank you, your baby's healthy and safe and we've got it from here. That's what she was waiting to hear.
Speaker 2:And so, when nothing is ever said, when the only time press gets involved is when a baby's found in a dumpster, when the only story the general public and these young women ever hear are the horror stories. And they never hear because no one ever publicizes that there was a surrender, no one ever says hey, we had a safe surrender of a baby, the baby is healthy, mom did the right thing. And then every time there's a baby found in a pond or abandoned in a dumpster. They're all like how come these?
Speaker 1:How did they not?
Speaker 2:How did they not know? Because that's the only time you ever say anything and and so we kind of changed that narrative and and actually talked about it and it it really gave it. It it was awareness. That's that's what has to happen.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you one of the letters we got from the Ohio fire chief. That was so great. He said they put a box in. We have the blessing, and we asked the media to show up. We tell everybody, not, you know, for the community to know and to thank those who supported it, but also for everyone to know this box is here if you need it.
Speaker 2:And so this fire chief sent us a message and said that he had gotten a call from a labor and delivery nurse who said a 17-year-old delivered and she had placed for adoption.
Speaker 2:She made an adoption plan, but she told the story that in the beginning of her pregnancy she was considering her options and considering abortion. And then she saw the press conference about the baby box and in her little mind she was like you know what, I'm going to keep this a secret and then I'm going to surrender. Well, she didn't keep it a secret and grandma found out, but in the process she did get the help that she needed and she was able to make an adoption plan and able to choose the family and have this beautiful outcome. But the reality is the very existence of the box. It didn't even need to be used. The existence of the box at that moment in her life let her know that she had other options of being able to keep her baby safe and do the right thing and she did the right thing she did what was best for her a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:So yeah, stories like that, that just kind of still bring me hope you know, cause. We, you know, we deal. We do deal with the hate. We do have days where it's just like, oh gosh, you know. But then you get these kinds of stories where this birth mom, you know research, something looked at us and and the fact that we say, look at all your options.
Speaker 1:And they do look at all their options and they choose what's best for them and we couldn't ask for anything better yeah, for sure well, uh, it has been a pleasure to interview you, to have you on beyond the box with monica kelsey and have you in studio and just to share your heart, to share your story and and share our story from the beginning of safe haven baby boxes. And you know, we're still at this, we've, we've, we're 10 years in right now. Do you think we got another 10 years?
Speaker 2:well, I might be dead, but um, but yeah, we got, we got another 10 years. There's a lot of work to do, you know there's a there's there's a lot of places where the boxes are not available and we need to get them there and we need, you know, we got to keep fighting the good fight. And as and as frustrating as it is in states like Connecticut and Oregon and Nebraska and New Mexico and New Mexico and I live in Florida and I got to tell you as frustrating as because I worked hard and the year I finally said I'm done, I'm not you know, helping it's.
Speaker 2:Somebody else needs to take up this battle.
Speaker 1:It got done, so maybe I just needed to get out of the way as that goes.
Speaker 2:But Florida finally signed the law and we're ready. I mean, I've got so many requests now from Florida we're ready to really make headway there. So, as frustrating as it is, in the down times you always have to say you know what, I've got to get up and keep fighting, and sometimes we feel like giving up and and and you know this better than anyone. But you know what. We get up and we say you know what these moms and their babies are worth it, and we're going to get up and fight another day. And um, st Mother Teresa said this and I've carried this with me most of my ministry God did not call us to be successful, he called us to be faithful. And so if we get up every morning and say we're going to be faithful to that that God's called us to do today, then then we can give all the glory to him when it goes well.
Speaker 1:We get up, we dress up and we show up a hundred percent there you go.
Speaker 1:Well, this is Beyond the Box with Monica Kelsey and Pam Stenzel, who has been with Monica Kelsey since the very beginning, and Safe Haven Baby Boxes since the very beginning. And again, it is a pleasure to interview you on Beyond the Box with Monica Kelsey, for people to hear your story, your voice and what you've done for the last 30 years of your life, which is absolutely amazing. So, all right, you guys will see us in two weeks here on Beyond the Box with Monica Kelsey. I'm not sure who's going to be on next, but again, you don't want to miss this. We are interviewing prosecutors. We are interviewing birth moms. I don't know If you got an idea for a show.
Speaker 1:Send us a message. God bless you, guys. We'll see you next week. Two weeks after today.