La Thi Hong happy to find her daughter after 31 years.
At 5 pm, while diligently sweeping a street in Ha Dong District, Hong received a phone call that would change her life forever. On the other end of the line, she was told that a DNA test had confirmed she and Léa were biologically mother and daughter.
Tears rolled down the weathered face of the woman who had spent half her life haunted by guilt for abandoning her newborn baby. “I couldn’t believe it was true,” she said softly.
Back in June, Hong had reached out to Dtinews, asking for help to find the daughter she gave up for adoption to a French family decades ago. The newspaper published her story and contacted several organisations in France to assist in the search. Within two weeks, Dtinews managed to locate a woman named Léa, who lives in Montreuil, a city about 10 kilometres from Paris, and whose background closely matched Hong’s description.
Léa agreed to send samples of her hair and nails to Vietnam for DNA testing. On October 17, Hong went to the Gentis Testing Centre in Hanoi to have her blood taken for comparison.
“When I looked at her photos, I noticed so many similarities in her face. I spent sleepless nights, hoping the DNA results would match,” she recalled.
To her astonishment, the process moved much faster than she ever expected.
“A few years ago, I wanted to look for my daughter but didn’t know where to start,” she said.
Although Léa’s birth date and name perfectly matched the records, Hong tried not to set her hopes too high. She had been disappointed before. Two years earlier, another young woman from France came to her hometown looking for her biological mother. Hong had dared to hope, only to discover the woman was not her long-lost daughter.
“At that moment, my world collapsed,” she said. “But I never lost faith. Deep down, I always believed I would find her one day.”
“I just want to hold my daughter once”
Hong recalled that in 1992, she fell in love with a man who abandoned her after discovering she was pregnant. Despite immense hardship and gossip from her neighbours, she decided to keep the baby and raise it on her own.
On January 2, 1994, she gave birth to a baby girl and named her La Thi Hong Hanh. But facing severe poverty and social pressure, Hong left her newborn at an orphanage in Soc Son Commune.
A few months later, she returned in tears, only to learn that the baby had been adopted by a family in France. Devastated, she went home, carrying the pain and guilt for the next three decades.
“Back then, having a child out of wedlock was considered a disgrace,” she said, her voice trembling. “If people had been as open-minded as they are today, I would never have abandoned my child.”
Now living with her husband in a small house in Chinh Kinh Street, Hanoi, Hong has another daughter who is married and lives separately. Her husband suffered a stroke when he was young, leaving her to shoulder the family’s financial burden. Despite her difficult life, she devotes time to charity work, hoping to make peace with her past.
“After receiving the DNA results, all I wish for is to hold my daughter in my arms, even just once, and I would be content. Whether she forgives me or not, I will accept it,” she said.
“After 31 years, I finally feel at peace knowing that the daughter I once lost is living a happy life in Europe. I am deeply grateful to Dtinews for bringing me this joy,” Hong said tearfully.
Daughter bears no resentment
Two days after Dtinews sent the DNA results to France, Léa was still overwhelmed with emotion. For more than 30 years, she had never imagined she would one day see her biological mother’s face.
“I want to meet her, but I need a bit more time to believe this isn’t a dream,” Léa said.
According to her, her adoptive parents travelled to Hanoi to bring her home to Paris in 1994. Raised with love and care, Léa grew up in a nurturing family that never hid the truth that she was adopted.
“As a child, I often dreamed of meeting my family in Vietnam but feared my birth mother wouldn’t want to see me,” she said. “When I turned 30, I decided to stop searching because I was afraid of getting hurt.”
Four months ago, when Dtinews contacted her, she was shocked and speechless. “It took me hours to calm down,” Léa recalled. After days of reflection, she decided to send her DNA samples to Vietnam.
“From the moment I mailed them to the day I got the results, I was anxious and restless. When I heard the test confirmed we were related, I felt such relief and happiness,” she said.
Although she was abandoned as a baby, Léa holds no resentment. “I’m grateful for her choice, it gave me a good life and the chance to become who I am today,” she shared.
Léa now plans to return to Vietnam for a trip and to meet her birth mother. She once visited the country at age 10 with her adoptive parents, and the memories of Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and the Mekong Delta remain vivid in her mind.
“I want to thank Dtinews and Gentis Testing Centre for helping us reunite after so many years apart,” she said. “This is truly a turning point in my life.”