A journey of love

By REBEKAH ELLIOTT

Date published: 7/19/2005

Parenting has not been easy for the Warrens.

First, they found out they couldn't have children after years of trying. Then, Spotsylvania residents Chris and Bryan Warren turned to adoption, not in America, but from overseas.

Again, they had to wait years.

"We were scared to adopt domestically," explained Chris relating how friends had experienced problems with birth mothers changing their minds and taking the babies back.

"Infertility is a hurtful thing anyway," she continued reflectively. "I just didn't think I could take anymore."

After waiting a year, then two, they opened the options window wider by changing their request from a baby to a child under 5.

In 1995, they found Oana, 4 years old and Romanian. She was small for her age, and they were told she was perhaps developmentally delayed.

"They showed us a picture of this little girl with brown hair and brown eyes," said Bryan. "How could you say no?"

They said yes.

The first night with their daughter at home in America, they were kicked, spit on and hit. In Romania, she had learned to hold her breath and pass out in anger.

"She didn't speak any English, we didn't speak any Romanian," said Bryan.

The homecoming was one of hurt and confusion that would bleed into the next six years.

Oana was diagnosed with attention deficit with hyperactivity disorder, put on Ritalin and "made into a zombie," said Bryan. She had fetal alcohol syndrome and had suffered malnutrition at the orphanage.

"She didn't even know how to suck on a straw [when we first got her] because they cut the ends of the bottle off [at the orphanage] so they could feed her faster," Bryan said.

They also learned to check her mouth at night because she would hoard food, afraid of hunger.

Still, that didn't explain all her symptoms or behavior, until 2002 when a school psychologist diagnosed Oana with autism.

"It was devastating when we first heard the word autism," said Chris.

And despite a diagnosis, issues don't change.

Oana had never known what it was like to have a friend, even though she attended special education classes.

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Date published: 7/19/2005