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ARIANNA'S JOURNEY: RPV COUPLE FACES ADOPTED CHILD'S TRAGEDY WITH COURAGE
By Kristin S. Agostoni
Staff
03/03/2012 05:45:13 PM PST
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an
Armenian orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve
McCrank/Daily Breeze)
HOW TO HELP
Anyone wanting to contribute to Ari's Playground can make checks
payable to the Paros Foundation, c/o Ari's Playground, 918 Parker St.,
A14, Berkeley, CA 94710.
The Spiglanins are in need of a pool filter, benches and tables
they could ship to Armenia. To donate or find out more, call
310-383-1877, or link to www.tomandlaurenshow.com/paros, or
www.facebook.com/ari.playground.
After taking a few bites of her pink Cake Pop, Arianna Spiglanin
wandered away from her mom's table at Starbucks.
Three years old and curious, the dark-haired girl wearing skinny jeans
and tennis shoes wasn't up for staying in one place as her mother,
Lauren Mahakian Spiglanin, sipped her coffee.
They are regulars at this Rolling Hills Estates Starbucks and another
up the street, where they've spent time since Arianna was a baby.
And so when store manager Paul Romo walked out from behind the counter,
Arianna rolled over to see him. He bent down to talk to her, and she
smiled back from her shiny purple walker.
Arianna was 9 months old when her mother and father, Tom Spiglanin,
brought her home to Rancho Palos Verdes from an orphanage in Yerevan,
Armenia.
Having tried unsuccessfully to have a child on their own, the couple
decided on adoption. Lauren Spiglanin suggested Armenia, given that
her family is Armenian and her sister adopted her son from the country
a decade ago.
It was a long process just getting the paperwork in order. There were
background checks and financial reviews, letters of recommendation,
pages of documents needing translation - for a hefty cost - all
leading up to a review by the Armenian government.
That all began at the start of 2007.
It wasn't until late December 2008 that the prospect of adopting a
little girl became real with a call from a facilitator they'd hired
to assist them in Armenia.
The baby had been born on Nov. 28, 2008; her birth mother had died
a week later.
"That was the call we were waiting for," said Lauren Spiglanin,
46. "The facilitator told us to come in March."
It was the first time both she and her husband, 53, had visited
the country.
They arrived at night to bitter cold temperatures, checking into a
rundown hotel the facilitator had recommended to them. Nonetheless,
the snowy weather and less
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. Arianna and her
mother spend a lot of time at Starbucks in Rolling Hills Estates
where the staff, including manager Paul Romo, have gotten to know
them. (Steve McCrank/Daily Breeze) than ideal lodging conditions
didn't temper their excitement.
"It felt really magical," Spiglanin said. "I felt so at peace here."
Their first visit to see the baby they would name Arianna Rose -
after their mothers, Anna and Rose - was at a hospital a few days
after they'd arrived.
At the time, Spiglanin said, they'd been told the baby wasn't eating
well.
"We go to the hospital and they bring her to us," Spiglanin said. "So
cute.
Her first smile was to Tom."
Arianna was born premature - a month, they'd been told - and her
single mother had died from a brain aneurism, Spiglanin said.
The facilitator introduced them to the baby's aunt, she said, but
even still they learned only "bits and pieces" of her medical history.
That first visit to Armenia would be followed by three more within
the next few months before the Spiglanins would become parents to a
little girl with big brown eyes framed by long lashes.
But it wasn't until August 2009 - after the adoption was finalized
- that the couple got some more answers about their baby's medical
background.
"Our last night here, our facilitator left an envelope at the hotel,"
Spiglanin said.
Inside were medical records that indicated the birth mother's
placenta was becoming detached, cutting Arianna's supply of oxygen,
she said. The papers said the baby had heavy asphyxia and acute
breath insufficiency.
"Basically, they're saying that it's cerebral palsy," Spiglanin said.
"She was not up front with us at all about Arianna," she said of the
facilitator, whom she would not name. "It all kind of makes sense
now. ...
Sometimes we were together, the aunt was very quiet."
And more, they began to suspect why Arianna had been bundled in several
layers of clothing - to make her look bigger, perhaps - and to wonder
more about why she had been in the hospital during their first visit.
"We got some documents, but it wasn't the complete medical
report," Spiglanin said. "We took a video that we had the doctors
here review. They said she looked alert. She definitely looked
malnourished. No one ever raised a question of cerebral palsy."
The new parents fault the
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve McCrank /
Staff Photographer) woman who they'd believed was helping them.
"We don't talk to her," Spiglanin said. "It turned out she was friends
with the aunt. She wanted to do good for her friend."
Cerebral palsy is a condition caused by injuries or abnormalities of
the brain that can result in the tightening of muscles and joints
and also muscle weakness. That can lead to developmental delays in
crawling, sitting and walking.
Once home, a pediatrician told the Spiglanins that Arianna's condition
was caused by a midbrain injury.
She was born more than two months premature, her mother said, which
they also discovered after they returned from Armenia.
The weeks and months that followed their homecoming would be filled
with doctors' visits and therapy sessions. In October 2009, Spiglanin
went back to work as a senior administrative analyst at El Segundo City
Hall - a job she later lost as the town dealt with a budget crisis.
Her husband, a scientist with two grown children, is typically in
control and calm, she said. The outspoken and confident Spiglanin
struggled with depression.
"I remember saying, `Don't worry, Arianna, Mommy will take care
of everything,"' she said. "We had 13 appointments a week. I was
depressed on the inside but not showing it on the outside because I
won't do that."
So Spiglanin sought help for herself, too, spending 15 months in
therapy.
Her time off allowed her to throw her energy into encouraging Arianna
to hold her head up, strengthen her neck and abdominal muscles and
learn to get around in a walker - which she got on New Year's Day,
2011.
"It's about building the muscle, but also about rewiring her brain,"
Spiglanin said.
Arianna visits a chiropractor and acupuncturist, takes equestrian
and aquatic therapy lessons and goes to classes at The Little Gym
in Torrance.
"Ari just amazes me every day," said gym director Claire Koeppe,
who has watched her learn to sit up, stand by holding onto a bar and
roll sideways down an incline.
"She is such a happy girl. I don't think I've ever seen her
frustrated. If she doesn't want to do something, she'll just sit back,"
she said. "(But) she loves being up high. ... She's a risk-taker."
Last fall, Arianna started a half-day preschool program for
special-needs students through the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified
School District.
Arianna mostly babbles rather than saying individual words, and still
relies on her parents to feed her. For baths, she sits in a chair
inside the tub.
But her mother said she's noticed significant improvements in her
development since school began.
"She's just so much more energetic. She's holding her head up
higher. She's reaching for things more," Spiglanin said. "She's a
lot more curious.
Eye-hand coordination is up, and that's because of school."
For Arianna's third birthday, her parents threw the Dora the Explorer
and Wonder Pets fan a party, inviting employees from her favorite
Starbucks shops.
"You see other kids, and you kind of ask yourself, why?" Spiglanin
said.
"Sometimes you kind of think, is she ever going to walk on her own?
"She'll be all right, because I get her the best of everything,"
she said.
The Spiglanins' experience adopting Arianna left them feeling deceived
by their adoption facilitator, but Lauren Spiglanin said she doesn't
fault the director at the state-run Nork orphanage, which houses
infants to children 6 years old. "She thought we knew" about the
medical history, Spiglanin said.
Nor does she fault Arianna's aunt, she said, as she believes the
woman wanted what was best for the baby.
Part of Spiglanin's work these days is raising money for a water
playground with a wading pool, flower beds and walkways that will
replace an outdoor space at the orphanage filled with weeds and
an old picnic bench - a spot where prospective parents could visit
with children.
In the summers, when the air in Yerevan is thick and humid, the
children could use the area to cool off, Spiglanin said.
She's fundraising through the nonprofit Paros Foundation, and already
has about $4,000 to put toward the $10,000 price tag.
She hopes to raise more through an online auction later this month of
a donated blue topaz and diamond pendant on an omega chain from The
Jewelry Source in El Segundo. Store owner Brenda Newman, who knew
Spiglanin when she worked across the street at City Hall, said she
was taken by the couple's story.
"I'm very driven by the parents. They're the ones that have really
done it for me. I'm driven by their passion," Newman said.
"They had no idea what happened before they adopted this wonderful
baby. ...
This is my way of sort of giving back to them."
[email protected]
Follow Kristin Agostoni on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kagostoni
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_20096701
By Kristin S. Agostoni
Staff
03/03/2012 05:45:13 PM PST
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an
Armenian orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve
McCrank/Daily Breeze)
HOW TO HELP
Anyone wanting to contribute to Ari's Playground can make checks
payable to the Paros Foundation, c/o Ari's Playground, 918 Parker St.,
A14, Berkeley, CA 94710.
The Spiglanins are in need of a pool filter, benches and tables
they could ship to Armenia. To donate or find out more, call
310-383-1877, or link to www.tomandlaurenshow.com/paros, or
www.facebook.com/ari.playground.
After taking a few bites of her pink Cake Pop, Arianna Spiglanin
wandered away from her mom's table at Starbucks.
Three years old and curious, the dark-haired girl wearing skinny jeans
and tennis shoes wasn't up for staying in one place as her mother,
Lauren Mahakian Spiglanin, sipped her coffee.
They are regulars at this Rolling Hills Estates Starbucks and another
up the street, where they've spent time since Arianna was a baby.
And so when store manager Paul Romo walked out from behind the counter,
Arianna rolled over to see him. He bent down to talk to her, and she
smiled back from her shiny purple walker.
Arianna was 9 months old when her mother and father, Tom Spiglanin,
brought her home to Rancho Palos Verdes from an orphanage in Yerevan,
Armenia.
Having tried unsuccessfully to have a child on their own, the couple
decided on adoption. Lauren Spiglanin suggested Armenia, given that
her family is Armenian and her sister adopted her son from the country
a decade ago.
It was a long process just getting the paperwork in order. There were
background checks and financial reviews, letters of recommendation,
pages of documents needing translation - for a hefty cost - all
leading up to a review by the Armenian government.
That all began at the start of 2007.
It wasn't until late December 2008 that the prospect of adopting a
little girl became real with a call from a facilitator they'd hired
to assist them in Armenia.
The baby had been born on Nov. 28, 2008; her birth mother had died
a week later.
"That was the call we were waiting for," said Lauren Spiglanin,
46. "The facilitator told us to come in March."
It was the first time both she and her husband, 53, had visited
the country.
They arrived at night to bitter cold temperatures, checking into a
rundown hotel the facilitator had recommended to them. Nonetheless,
the snowy weather and less
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. Arianna and her
mother spend a lot of time at Starbucks in Rolling Hills Estates
where the staff, including manager Paul Romo, have gotten to know
them. (Steve McCrank/Daily Breeze) than ideal lodging conditions
didn't temper their excitement.
"It felt really magical," Spiglanin said. "I felt so at peace here."
Their first visit to see the baby they would name Arianna Rose -
after their mothers, Anna and Rose - was at a hospital a few days
after they'd arrived.
At the time, Spiglanin said, they'd been told the baby wasn't eating
well.
"We go to the hospital and they bring her to us," Spiglanin said. "So
cute.
Her first smile was to Tom."
Arianna was born premature - a month, they'd been told - and her
single mother had died from a brain aneurism, Spiglanin said.
The facilitator introduced them to the baby's aunt, she said, but
even still they learned only "bits and pieces" of her medical history.
That first visit to Armenia would be followed by three more within
the next few months before the Spiglanins would become parents to a
little girl with big brown eyes framed by long lashes.
But it wasn't until August 2009 - after the adoption was finalized
- that the couple got some more answers about their baby's medical
background.
"Our last night here, our facilitator left an envelope at the hotel,"
Spiglanin said.
Inside were medical records that indicated the birth mother's
placenta was becoming detached, cutting Arianna's supply of oxygen,
she said. The papers said the baby had heavy asphyxia and acute
breath insufficiency.
"Basically, they're saying that it's cerebral palsy," Spiglanin said.
"She was not up front with us at all about Arianna," she said of the
facilitator, whom she would not name. "It all kind of makes sense
now. ...
Sometimes we were together, the aunt was very quiet."
And more, they began to suspect why Arianna had been bundled in several
layers of clothing - to make her look bigger, perhaps - and to wonder
more about why she had been in the hospital during their first visit.
"We got some documents, but it wasn't the complete medical
report," Spiglanin said. "We took a video that we had the doctors
here review. They said she looked alert. She definitely looked
malnourished. No one ever raised a question of cerebral palsy."
The new parents fault the
Lauren and Tom Spiglanin adopted Arianna as an infant from an Armenian
orphanage but weren't aware she has cerebral palsy. (Steve McCrank /
Staff Photographer) woman who they'd believed was helping them.
"We don't talk to her," Spiglanin said. "It turned out she was friends
with the aunt. She wanted to do good for her friend."
Cerebral palsy is a condition caused by injuries or abnormalities of
the brain that can result in the tightening of muscles and joints
and also muscle weakness. That can lead to developmental delays in
crawling, sitting and walking.
Once home, a pediatrician told the Spiglanins that Arianna's condition
was caused by a midbrain injury.
She was born more than two months premature, her mother said, which
they also discovered after they returned from Armenia.
The weeks and months that followed their homecoming would be filled
with doctors' visits and therapy sessions. In October 2009, Spiglanin
went back to work as a senior administrative analyst at El Segundo City
Hall - a job she later lost as the town dealt with a budget crisis.
Her husband, a scientist with two grown children, is typically in
control and calm, she said. The outspoken and confident Spiglanin
struggled with depression.
"I remember saying, `Don't worry, Arianna, Mommy will take care
of everything,"' she said. "We had 13 appointments a week. I was
depressed on the inside but not showing it on the outside because I
won't do that."
So Spiglanin sought help for herself, too, spending 15 months in
therapy.
Her time off allowed her to throw her energy into encouraging Arianna
to hold her head up, strengthen her neck and abdominal muscles and
learn to get around in a walker - which she got on New Year's Day,
2011.
"It's about building the muscle, but also about rewiring her brain,"
Spiglanin said.
Arianna visits a chiropractor and acupuncturist, takes equestrian
and aquatic therapy lessons and goes to classes at The Little Gym
in Torrance.
"Ari just amazes me every day," said gym director Claire Koeppe,
who has watched her learn to sit up, stand by holding onto a bar and
roll sideways down an incline.
"She is such a happy girl. I don't think I've ever seen her
frustrated. If she doesn't want to do something, she'll just sit back,"
she said. "(But) she loves being up high. ... She's a risk-taker."
Last fall, Arianna started a half-day preschool program for
special-needs students through the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified
School District.
Arianna mostly babbles rather than saying individual words, and still
relies on her parents to feed her. For baths, she sits in a chair
inside the tub.
But her mother said she's noticed significant improvements in her
development since school began.
"She's just so much more energetic. She's holding her head up
higher. She's reaching for things more," Spiglanin said. "She's a
lot more curious.
Eye-hand coordination is up, and that's because of school."
For Arianna's third birthday, her parents threw the Dora the Explorer
and Wonder Pets fan a party, inviting employees from her favorite
Starbucks shops.
"You see other kids, and you kind of ask yourself, why?" Spiglanin
said.
"Sometimes you kind of think, is she ever going to walk on her own?
"She'll be all right, because I get her the best of everything,"
she said.
The Spiglanins' experience adopting Arianna left them feeling deceived
by their adoption facilitator, but Lauren Spiglanin said she doesn't
fault the director at the state-run Nork orphanage, which houses
infants to children 6 years old. "She thought we knew" about the
medical history, Spiglanin said.
Nor does she fault Arianna's aunt, she said, as she believes the
woman wanted what was best for the baby.
Part of Spiglanin's work these days is raising money for a water
playground with a wading pool, flower beds and walkways that will
replace an outdoor space at the orphanage filled with weeds and
an old picnic bench - a spot where prospective parents could visit
with children.
In the summers, when the air in Yerevan is thick and humid, the
children could use the area to cool off, Spiglanin said.
She's fundraising through the nonprofit Paros Foundation, and already
has about $4,000 to put toward the $10,000 price tag.
She hopes to raise more through an online auction later this month of
a donated blue topaz and diamond pendant on an omega chain from The
Jewelry Source in El Segundo. Store owner Brenda Newman, who knew
Spiglanin when she worked across the street at City Hall, said she
was taken by the couple's story.
"I'm very driven by the parents. They're the ones that have really
done it for me. I'm driven by their passion," Newman said.
"They had no idea what happened before they adopted this wonderful
baby. ...
This is my way of sort of giving back to them."
[email protected]
Follow Kristin Agostoni on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kagostoni
http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_20096701