Jennifer Melgoza was out delivering mail in October of 2019 when her phone rang.
Seeing the number flashing on her phone, she knew it was the Indiana Department of Child Services.
“Oh my God,” she thought. “It’s DCS again.”
She quickly pulled over her mail truck to answer the call.
That’s when she learned the life-changing news.
“We just wanted to inform you that you guys were the chosen family for the baby in the baby box,” she was told.
Jennifer looked at her phone.
“You’re not joking, right?” she asked. “This isn’t a joke? You’re being serious?”
Laughter on the other end of the phone met her disbelief.
“No, Mrs. Melgoza,” the DCS worker said, amused. “I am very serious. You know, out of the ones that we interviewed, we just felt that you and your husband are the best match for the baby. And we want to schedule it so that she can come home.”
Over the next few days, Jennifer and her husband, Mario, were caught in a joy-filled frenzy as they prepared their home for their newborn baby girl—a child they had been yearning for for a long time.
“Why are we not good enough?”
The Melgozas had been praying for a child and trying to adopt for almost two years. Early in their marriage, Jennifer had learned that she had polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS). She had unknowingly been living with it for years. Because it had gone untreated for so long, it had rendered her infertile.
“It was heartbreaking and it was a really big thing,” Jennifer said. “And I didn’t know what to do. I had my husband with me this whole time, which was an absolute blessing because he’s my rock. And he really helped me through a lot of doubt.”
Devastated by the news, the Melgozas decided to pursue adoption. As they began planning, they envisioned themselves adopting an older child. They could easily see themselves taking camping trips and enjoying time outside with a child between the ages of 8 and 15. Soon they started the interview process.
They interviewed again and again and again. They interviewed to adopt three different children and were turned down each time. Jennifer became more discouraged.
“Mario, let’s just quit,” she told her husband. “Let’s quit, let’s move to a different place. And let’s pick it back up and start it all over.”
“And he wouldn’t let me,” she said. “He absolutely refused. It was coming to arguments for us”
Jennifer began internalizing the struggle she and her husband were facing in the adoption process as personal rejection of their parenting ability.
“It just kept happening that we were being told ‘no,’” she said. “I started to feel like something was wrong with us. You know—why are we not good enough to have kids? It’s bad enough that I’m not good enough to have kids of my own. And now I can’t even take care of somebody else’s child when that’s all I want to do.”
Mario provided steady support to Jennifer through her despair.
“Those were thoughts that I was having and you know, my husband knew this and he just sat there, like the greatest man that he could be,” Jennifer said. “And it helped me through everything.”
The Baby Box
Finally, in September 2019, Jennifer stumbled upon an astonishing local news story. A newborn baby had been placed in a Safe Haven Baby Box at a hospital five minutes away from where they lived.
Jennifer had never heard of a “baby box,” but was intrigued.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God, what a wonderful thing,’” she said. “I looked into these baby boxes and was like, ‘Wow, this is amazing.’”
Founded in 2016 by former firefighter and medic, Monica Kelsey, Safe Haven Baby Boxes exist as a safe option for mothers to anonymously abandon their infants in the hands of trained professionals. Since the first baby boxes were established in 2016, the group has saved 11 infants and seen them placed for adoption through DCS.
Jennifer saw that the baby who had been placed in her local baby box was in need of an adoptive family. A thought struck her.
“Hey, you know what?” she said to her husband. “What if we were having such a hard time because our baby wasn’t even born yet? What if she’s supposed to be our baby?” she asked, referring to the baby in the baby box.
Her husband chuckled and thought about it. Then he agreed to submit a home study to adopt the baby.
“But don’t get your hopes up,” he cautioned. “I don’t want to see you get hurt or broken again.”
A Complete Secret
And so the Melgozas nervously began another attempt at adoption.
“This time we kept it a complete secret,” Jennifer said. “We didn’t tell anybody, we didn’t even tell my parents.”
A few weeks went by after they had submitted their home study to the Department of Child Services. Not hearing anything, the Melgozas began to let go of the idea, believing the baby was already placed with another family.
But then, at the end of September, Jennifer got a call from DCS. The Melgozas were one of three applicants who had been selected for an interview.
Jennifer immediately called her husband and told him he’d need to take time off work the following week for the interview.
Sitting in the lobby, waiting for the interview the next week, Jennifer felt her heart racing. She could read the same nervousness on her husband’s face.
At the end of the interview, the department staff told the Melgozas they would hear back in a week on whether or not they had been selected as the baby’s adoptive parents.
It didn’t take long.
The next day was the day Jennifer received the exciting news while she was delivering mail. The baby would be ready to join the Melgoza household within days.
From there, the Melgozas began gathering all they would need to welcome a newborn baby into their home.
“This whole time, for almost two years, we had been preparing to have an older child at home,” Jennifer said. “We had nothing for a baby.”
They quickly bought a stroller, a play pen, a crib, a car seat and other essential items.
“When we became parents, you know, most parents have nine months—now we had days to prep for this and get it all together,” she said.
Finally, the day arrived.
“You can pick her up—she’s your daughter.”
Little Grace Melgoza came home to her mom and dad days after they had interviewed and been selected as her parents.
When Grace’s case managers brought her out of the car, she was still in her car seat.
“We ran outside like two little kids excited for the ice cream truck,” Jennifer said.
Mario asked if he could bring her inside their home, to which the case workers said, “Yes.” He stared at their new baby in awe.
“You can pick her up—she’s your daughter,” they told him.
“And I think that, that might be when it kicked in,” Jennifer said. “Like, ‘Oh my God, we’re parents. We just had a baby.’”
For the next three hours, Mario held onto his daughter. Only when Jennifer asked if she could hold her did he realize she had yet to do so.
The new parents and Grace then made their inaugural trip as a family of three to Jennifer’s parents’ house.
“Grandma and Grandpa absolutely fell in love with her,” Jennifer said. “They just held her and loved her and just looked at her. And to this day, they still give her that same look, like, ‘Oh my God, you’re just so precious. You’re exactly where you belong.’”
Their extended family felt the same.
“It was like, we had planned for this for years,” Jennifer said, starting to tear up. “And, you know, she still is a perfect fit for us.”
Almost two years later, the Melgozas remain in contact with Safe Haven Baby Boxes, committed to supporting their mission.
“Ever since we found out we were going to be her parents—that she was coming home to us—we had decided amongst ourselves that we are going to do everything and anything we can and stay involved with Monica and Baby Boxes for the rest of our lives,” she said. “Because it’s an organization that people need to know about and expecting parents should know about, whether they feel that they can’t continue a pregnancy or they don’t know what to do, or for whatever reason it may be that they can’t keep their baby.
“But this is something that they should know about because it doesn’t always end with these babies being put in boxes or…finding babies in dumpsters,” she said. “You know, it doesn’t have to end that way.”
She is also offering words of encouragement to prospective adoptive parents, longing to welcome a child into their arms.
“Keep your head up and pray,” she said. “There was a lot of prayer that went on over here that a lot of people don’t know about. Keep trying. Your child is out here and your baby is out here. Maybe they just haven’t been born yet.”
This is Part 2 in a two-part story on Safe Haven Baby Boxes. To learn more about Save Haven Baby Boxes, visit shbb.org.
To learn more about Indiana Right to Life’s adoption project, So Many Special Families, visit somanyspecialfamilies.org.