By Rachel Paula Abrahamson -
Today
Brittany Tyler, a foster mother from Kentucky, was reading the news in May 2022 when she saw one about a baby who had been abandoned at a local fire station.
“I started praying that they would give him to us, but I didn't want to get my hopes up,” Tyler said.
Kentucky's Safe Infant Act allows someone to anonymously and legally leave a baby at a designated location, without having to answer questions about it.
Samuel was adopted on December 18, 2023. Courtesy Heather Wilkerson of Heather Shay Photography
Details were scarce at the time, but Taylor, 37, and her husband, Chris, later learned that the newborn's birth mother had put him in a shoe box with a blanket and a handwritten note in which explained that she was not capable of taking proper care of him.
“At the end of the note, the person wrote: 'I love you,'” the woman said.
Now Taylor feels the same way about the baby.
Samuel is the name Brittany and her husband chose for their son, who is now 20 months old.
The couple adopted him on December 18, 2023, after fostering him for 581 days.
The baby joined her brothers Judah, 8, and Calvin, 5.
The Tylers received a call to take in Samuel a few days after he was dropped off at the fire station.
“My prayers were answered,” Taylor recalled.
When Brittany and Chris, 43, met the newborn, he weighed just over two pounds and was in the neonatal intensive care unit.
The Tylers were chosen because they had already taken in medically fragile babies.
“I remember taking him in my arms and knowing immediately, 'This is my boy.
He is the new member of our family,” Chris assured.
Chris noted that Judah and Calvin also took an immediate liking to Samuel.
They were also adopted.
The three brothers are inseparable.
“Everyone misses Samuel's hugs,” Taylor said.
“He is such a cuddly boy.”
Samuel with his brothers, Judah and Calvin.Courtesy of Courtesy Heather Wilkerson of Heather Shay Photography
Outside the Tyler home is a welcome mat that reads: “Just so you know, there are a lot of kids here.”
Adoptions have been a dream come true for her and Chris, after years of struggling with infertility.
“All I ever wanted was to be a mother,” Taylor mentioned, noting that they are in the process of adopting another baby: a girl.
“Samuel is obsessed with her.
He tries to take her in her arms as if she were a doll and she just allows it,” Taylor said with a laugh.
Samuel's name has a special meaning.
In the Bible, Hannah is a barren woman who prays to have a child.
“God answers prayer and Hannah has Samuel,” Chris explained.
The boy's middle name is Ryan, after Taylor's late brother, who was a firefighter.
The couple
wants Samuel's biological mother to know that they love her for what she did
.
They have saved her handwritten note for the boy to read when she is older.
The baby sleeps with the blanket in which he was delivered.
“I turned her into a teddy bear,” Taylor said.
“So that she always has a little piece of her mother.”