I was abandoned by my mother  two hours after I was born old - now I help other desperate moms give away their babies across America

A mother-of-three who was abandoned at a hospital when she was just two hours old has opened up about her mission to help other desperate moms give away their babies safely. 

Known as the Baby Box Lady, Monica Kelsey, 51, founded the non-profit Safe Haven Baby Boxes (SHBB) in 2015.

A total of 16 states have now installed baby boxes to help mothers who want to give up their babies anonymously as a safe and legal alternative to abandonment, with 44 infants surrendered since they launched.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Kelsey said: 'Two hours after my mom gave birth to me she abandoned me at a hospital in Ohio'.

She explained that her mother had been raped aged just 17 and left alongside the side of the road after the attack in August 1972. 

'I've taken my story and have taken my pain of feeling worthless and put it together and I created Safe Haven Baby Boxes to help other women. I can't change what happened to me or my birth mom but I can help other women,' she said. 

Monica Kelsey, also known as the Baby Box Lady, founded the non-profit Safe Haven Baby Boxes (SHBB). She told DailyMail.com that a total of 44 babies have been placed in their baby boxes - their most recent surrender was last week

Kelsey posts videos online informing people on how the boxes work. Here, she shows followers that the hatch is opened from the outside, and the baby is left inside the crib

The majority of baby drop-offs so far have taken place in Indiana, which is where the organization is based. 

The company offers a 24-hour hotline for mothers in crisis, and provides the closest baby box drop-off locations - a fire station, hospital or EMS center.

There are 223 baby box locations nationwide, and for those states that do not yet have one, Kelsey's non-profit works to assist them through their hotlines.

Her organization has helped an additional 150 babies who were surrendered by their parents in person.

'If a woman calls us from the state of Washington today, obviously there's no boxes in that area, so we are going to try and get her to walk in and hand that child to a person because she doesn't have an option of anonymity,' Kelsey told DailyMail.com.

And even if baby boxes are available, parents still have the option to surrender their child in-person. 

'At my fire station in Woodbine, Indiana we have a baby box but we were handed an infant,' she said.

She added: 'It is pivotal no matter where these women are that they are getting the right information and our hotline does that.'

The baby box drop off points are located outside the building via an exterior door. The parent opens the door, places the baby inside a bassinet, and then closes the door. Once the door is shut, a sensor alerts authorities, and medical staff to retrieve the baby.

Timing is critical. Kelsey said: 'The longest a baby has ever been in our boxes is four minutes and 20 seconds.'

'The alarms are extremely quick - which they need to be. The fire department has a protocol of five minutes or less, so the baby has to be out of the box within five minutes,’ she explained. 

‘They know this, and they set up protocols to ensure this happens.’

Each state has its own statute on the time period a parent can place a child in the baby box. Some states have a seven-day window, while others have up to 30 or 90 days. Thirty days, she explained is the average.

However, there are states have a shorter time frame to surrender. 

California, Arizona and Hawaii have a 72-hour time frame, but Kansas and North Dakota have up to a year.

Each state has its own statute on the time period a parent can place a child in the baby box

The baby box drop offs are user-friendly. The boxes are located outside the building via an exterior door. The parent opens the door, places the baby inside a bassinet, and then closes the door. Once the door is shut, a sensor alerts authorities, and medical staff to retrieve the baby

Kelsey offers training based on Safe Haven laws for those states that do not have any baby boxes. These laws were enacted in 2001 and allow parents to anonymously surrender their baby at a designed location.

She said: ‘We will come in and do the training on safe haven for them, teaching them what to say to a mom who walks in and hands a child to them, and what not to say to her, and the way you need to make her feel.

'The worst thing that we can do is shame a parent, or judge a parent that walks in and does the right thing.’

New York does not yet have any baby boxes, and Kelsey recalled one incident when a Safe Haven counselor needed to intervene.

She explained that the mother wanted to drop her newborn at a baby box. When she learned it wasn't available, she was instructed to go to the fire house. But once she arrived she was unable to leave.

‘Our counselor was like put them on the phone. We were like, do you know your safe haven law? You cannot hold her. You cannot demand information from her - so that type of education for them is critical.

'We don’t want them thinking they’re being trapped - by walking in and doing the right thing - so safe haven training is pivotal.’

Kelsey, who spends much of her time on the road and installing baby boxes, said ‘There is no organization in this country that is going into firehouses and into hospitals and doing safe haven training. We are the only organization doing that.

‘Every box has to be blessed before it goes live.

‘As a Christian that is one of the reasons why we don’t take federal or state funding, so if we want to pray with a mom on our hotline and as a Christian organization we are going to pray.’

Kelsey has a large following on social media, and frequently posts on TikTok to her more than 800,000 followers, informing them on her services. 

The boxes do not require FDA approval since they are not a medical device. However, the boxes are expensive. One costs upwards of $20,000, that Kelsey explained are funded through private donors.

Kelsey said that she has ‘dedicated her life to this,' and her mission is a 'family affair.'

Her husband runs the company, Safe Haven Baby Boxes, Inc, the manufacturer of the baby boxes. He is also Woodburn's part-time mayor. 

Kelsey, now 51, shared that after more than two decades, she finally met her birth mother, when she was 37, and explained that she ‘found her by mistake'

The boxes do not require FDA approval since it is not a medical device. However, the boxes are pricey. One costs upwards of $20,000, that Kelsey explained are funded through private donors

The founder explained that many of these babies that are placed in the box still have their umbilical cord on them

Many of the women or young girls who surrender their newborns are between the ages of 13 and 44 and they come from all over the country. 

There is no way to track the demographic or stereotype - with their ethnicity, race, age, and reasons for the surrender varying.

She explained that many of these babies that are placed in the box still have their umbilical cord attached.

‘We don't know these woman stories, we don't know what happened to them, still we should be giving woman a hand up instead of pushing them down.’

She pointed to Carmel, one of the wealthiest cities in Indiana, and explained that it holds the record for the number of infants surrendered in their baby box.

‘They’ve had four infants in the last year and a half. When you look at that, it’s like okay well did they come from a different town or did they come from Carmel? And that is the beauty of the baby boxes. We just don’t know, but we know that that boxes are getting used in four communities and boxes are getting used in the wealthiest communities,' Kelsey said.

Kelsey also pointed out that the states that have abortion rights up until delivery - New York, California, New Mexico - are the states that appear to have the highest abandonment rates in the country

Kelseytravels all over the country raising awareness through education and training 

Kelsey shared one gut-wrenching story of a mother who surrendered her baby when she was 13 after she was raped by a family member. Kelsey read what the woman wrote, and posted it to her TikTok, and shared how courageous she was.

In Indiana, which has a Foster to Adopt program, she recalled another tale of a young woman who surrendered her newborn and then wanted her baby back a week later.

‘It’s not out of the ordinary when a woman changes their mind,’ she said. ‘For whatever reason they felt like they wanted the child.’

In that case, the young mom went through the DCS, which opened an investigation, Kelsey explained.

’She was given custody of the child back and we support that.’

Returning to her own story, Kelsey shared that she met her birth mother decades after she was adopted when she was 37.

‘I did not find her through DNA or a birth certificate. We come from a small town and the town she lived in was 20 minutes from where I grew up and I found her,’ she explained.

‘I often I say that it was the best and worst day of my life - that is the day I learned the trauma and tragedy of what happened when she was young. I appreciated her opening her arms to me and bringing her in and I am very blessed to get to know her because I truly earned empathy to her.’

She said her mother died in 2013 aged 57 years old from a urinary tract infection that became septic. Kelsey spent her final days at her bedside, which she wrote about in her book, ‘Blessed to Have Been Abandoned: The Story of the Baby Box Lady.’

She added: ‘She was on a ventilator for seven days and I sat beside and appreciated her and was with her when she passed away that became part of the story and the ministry - being there at a time when she needed me most as she was there for me when I needed her the most back in 1973.'

Kelsey also confronted the biological father she never knew.

‘I had his information. I turned up at his house. It did not turn up well,’ she recalled.

'But being angry for me is not the answer, but I did find him and I did speak to him.’

When asked if there has been an increase in demand for baby boxes since the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Kelsey said she doesn’t believe there is a correlation between the abortion ban and the amount of babies left.

‘Are we getting more babies than before. Yes. Is it associated with that? I have no idea,’ she said.

She added: ’What I do know is that we doubled the amount of boxes we have put in, and doubled the amount of states we are in.’

Kelsey also pointed out that the states with looser abortion laws - such as New York, California, New Mexico - appear to have higher abandonment rates.

She added: ‘I don't think a child should die because of the acts of their father. I am talking about the rape and incest exceptions. I am talking about my life. Every child deserves their right to be born. SHBB does not take a stand.

‘We have helped thousands of woman on our hotline a lot of them are probably pro-choice woman and we don't want them to feel that we don't love them because we do love them, and we want to help them so we don't put our stance on abortion out there publicly on SHBB but that is my personal view.'

Kelsey said the organization launched a campaign to make sure women understand their right to be anonymous if they surrender to one of the boxes.

‘I tend to think that these women are just now getting the information, and they're getting what they've been asking for - for many years, which is anonymity.'