Jesse Whitten, a police officer from Santa Rosa, California, was far from thinking that his life would change the day he met a homeless woman in her 30s while on patrol.
The policeman and his wife realized that the woman was pregnant and teamed up to help her. The couple helped the drug addict and homeless woman living on the street in every possible way, referring her to various shelters and rehabilitation centers.
“We struck up a strange friendship with her. We talked a lot. It’s not every day you meet someone who has no roof over his head, and who is also pregnant,” the man says.
Last August, Jesse decided to introduce the woman to his wife, Ashley Whitten.
Yet despite the couple’s efforts to rehabilitate the 30-year-old woman, drug addiction continued to speak volumes. Then, on Valentine’s Day in February of this year, Jessie and Ashley received a phone call from a social worker telling them that the woman had given birth to a girl.
The revelation was accompanied by a request that the couple, parents of three children, adopt her. “I asked her if she was sure about this. She answered “yes” because she wanted this child to have a home full of love,” the woman said.
So it was. Four days after the birth, the baby went home with those who would become her adoptive parents.
The couple officially adopted the baby girl, who was named Harlow Macy Whitten, on August 30.
Now that her family is growing, Ashley fondly remembers the day she met her daughter’s biological mother.
“I felt our daughter in the womb of this woman. I know that she was a good person, giving up her daughter for adoption. She loved her daughter so much”.
Harlow is now six months old, and although she struggled with the side effects of the drug she was exposed to in the womb for the first few months, today she is a healthy and happy little girl.
