Woman finds, adopts terrified girl hiding in skilled nursing facility. Then came a second surprise

EDMOND, Okla. (KFOR) - An administrator at a skilled nursing facility in the metro was shocked to find a terrified and hungry nine-year-old child, hiding behind a recliner in a resident's room. Savanah Patt knew what she had to do next.

"She looked at me and she wouldn't talk at all. And the resident, I was like, 'Um, who is this?' And she said, 'Oh, that's my granddaughter,'" Savanah said. "She smelled terrible, she was very dirty, she didn't have shoes."

At just nine-years-old, little Renlee had been hiding in her grandma's room for a week, after a neighbor dropped her off at the facility when they found the tiny girl living alone with her older brother for weeks.

Their home was a hoarded trailer in southeast Oklahoma City, which they shared with "a ton of cats and dogs," according to Renlee. She also remembers holes in the floor, filth and feces.

For Renlee, food was scarce - and so were her parents, who Savanah says are lifelong addicts, and would force Renlee to panhandle with them on street corners for drug money.

"They would take the food stamps and trade them for drugs," Savanah said. "They hoisted her into dumpsters and they would go dumpster diving."

Renlee had a case of lice so severe, she couldn't return to school until they were gone. But with no one to help the little girl get rid of them, she never returned to school that year - until Savanah stepped in.

"I fell in love with her," said Savanah, who was thrilled at the chance to adopt little Renlee.

Ten years have passed since those earlier, darker days, and Renlee can now say she has lived with her adopted family longer than she did with her birth family.

Now 19, Renlee's life has been transformed by the gift of adoption.

"I don't know where I'd be without my mom, I don't," she said with tears in her eyes. "I was born with meth, and heroin, and pretty much every drug you can think of in my system as a baby."

But Renlee has broken the chains of generational addiction with the help of a mother - who chose her.

"It's amazing!" Renlee smiled. "To just feel loved and safe."

Finding Renlee all those years ago was not the only shock Savanah experienced.

A couple of years after adopting her, Savanah received a phone call, asking if she also wanted Renlee's older sister, then 13, who Renlee hardly knew.

Cheyanne had been tossed around between relatives and acquaintances her whole life.

"She had been left at a Circle K gas station in Yukon, Oklahoma." Savanah said the woman Cheyanne was living with no longer wanted her. "Cheyanne didn't know I was coming, and I pull up, she was sitting outside and she looks at me. I roll down the window and she said, 'What are you doing here?' I said, 'You want to live with me?' She said, 'You want me?' And I said, 'Yeah, girl.'"

Savanah then became a mom of two, after also adopting Cheyanne.

"People are like, 'Oh, you saved them.' No, no friends. They saved me, because having them made me want to be better," Savanah said.

Cheyanne and Renlee became the first in their family to graduate high school. Renlee is now on track to getting a college nursing degree. She hopes to pour love over her patients, just like her mom did for her ten years earlier.

"Her finding me in a room, and now I'm going to be kind of working with people like that," Renlee said.

And, to complete the circle, she wants to also transform another child's life with adoption.

"Whether they're clean, dirty, whatever. They deserve love too. I mean, they deserve to be happy and have a home and be safe and not have to worry about where they're going to get their next meal," she said.

Savanah replied, "The attachment and bond that you get that you're choosing to love, and they're choosing to love is so beautiful."

Renlee's older brother was taken in by another family. She hopes to someday reunite.

At this very moment, more than 390,000 children and teens across the country are in foster care, desperately hoping to find a permanent family.

November is National Adoption Month. If you would like to foster or adopt one of the thousands of Oklahoma children and teens needing a home, click here for more information.