WAKE COUNTY, N.C. (WLOS) — A North Carolina mother is charged with child abuse after leaving her two young children on a the side of a road and driving away, according to police.

38-year-old Jennifer Westfall allegedly dropped her two children, nine years and 19 months old, on the side of Reedy Creek Road in Cary in early October.

The children are fine and in foster care, but the mother said in an interview with ABC11 that is not what happened.

Police report a woman taking her child to the local elementary school witnessed Westfall dropping the kids. She picked the two children up and brought them to the school. The school resource officer reportedly alerted Child Protective Services.

Westfall, however, said that she drove onto the school’s campus, dropped her kids off, and saw a woman take them by the hand, explaining she thought it was a legal way to abandon the children.

“I know what I did was wrong but I just, I was so tired of doing this by myself,” Westfall said in the interview.

According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services infants up to seven days old can legally be left with another adult.

Police charged the mother with two counts of misdemeanor child abuse.

Westfall was arrested at her home Monday. She has been released from jail and is due in court next month.

Source: WSBT