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Officer Adopts Drug-Addicted Baby After A Message From God

CNN

A police officer made a monumental decision after he found a pregnant woman using drugs behind a convenience store.

Albuquerque police officer Ryan Holets was investigating a bank robbery, when he found 35-year-old Crystal Champ and a companion injecting heroin, and decided to confront them.

He turned on his bodycam to chastise the pair before he realized Champ was about eight months pregnant.  

"You're going to kill your baby," Holets is heard saying on the bodycam footage. "Why do you have to be doing that stuff? It's going to ruin your baby."

While the video initially saw Holets write out a citation, he decided to stop and listen to Champ's story.

"It's not every day I see a sight like that," Holets told CNN. "It just made me really sad."

Champ said she had been addicted to heroin and crystal meth her entire life. Living in a tent alongside a highway in New Mexico, she spends up to $50 just to get her fix of drugs. While Champ said she's tried multiple times to get clean, she's failed every time.

"I did give up. I just decided this was going to be my life," Champ said. "It just keeps coming back and ruining my life."

It was then Holets made a decision that would change his life forever.

It was at that moment Holets asked Champ if he could adopt her baby.

The police officer and his wife, Rebecca, were already the parents of four children, but were planning on adopting a fifth child once their youngest, who was 10 months old, was a bit older.

"He already knew my heart on the issue, and he knew that I would be totally on board with it," Rebecca said.

The couple only had a short time to prepare, as Champ would go into labor only three weeks later to a daughter named Hope.

However, due Champ's drug use, the newborn was born with an addiction opioids, called neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). The syndrome can create several problems for Hope, including the possibility of developmental disorders later in her life. She has already undergone the painful process of detoxing and withdrawals, and had methadone treatment.

The scene at the hospital was bittersweet for the family, as Champ had to say goodbye to the baby she had carried for the past nine months.

"I love you. Goodbye," Rebecca recalled Crystal saying to the baby. "And then she turns to me and says 'Take care of her for me.' And I said, 'I will take good care of her and you take good care of yourself.' It was super emotional."

Holets said while it was unconventional how he and Champ met each other, it was all part of God's plan.

"I was led by God to take the chance," Holets said. "God brought us all together. I really don't have any other way to explain it."

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