An American university professor who spent 25 years searching for her biological mother in Vietnam finally found her, only to discover that the woman had never stopped looking for her either. Annabel King was born on June 8, 2000, in Gia An district, Vietnam. A hospital worker registered her under the name Nguyen Thi Hien before she was transferred to the Hoom Xuan orphanage. Six months later, American couple Kevin and Bandita traveled to Vietnam hoping to adopt a baby girl, and brought her home as Annabel King.
Her adoptive parents never hid her past from her. They encouraged her to embrace both her Vietnamese roots and her American upbringing. Through hard work, Annabel became an engineer and later a respected professor at a university in Kentucky. Despite her accomplishments, one question haunted her: Who was her mother, and had she ever thought about the daughter she lost?
Determined to find answers, Annabel hired a private investigator to travel through Vietnam and created a Facebook page asking for help. Her adoption records contained almost nothing, no name, no address, no clue to her mother’s identity. Still, she refused to give up, and instead of resenting the woman she had never met, she chose empathy. In one post, she wrote a letter to a mother who might never read it.
Annabel asked what her mother looked like, acknowledged the enormous pressure her mother must have faced in 2000, and stated she had never believed the people who told her she had been abandoned. “I don’t blame you. I only feel pity for you,” she wrote, adding a final request: if anyone found her mother, they should be gentle with her, fearing she might feel shame or guilt. The words reached further than Annabel ever imagined.
For 25 years, a woman named Phan Thi Khanh, known as Mrs. Hai, had also been searching. She worked in a factory in Ho Chi Minh City. In 2000, she was a young woman from a poor family in Nghe An, the third of eight children.
She had moved to Saigon to earn money and support her parents. There she was deceived and sexually assaulted by a man she trusted. When she discovered she was pregnant, she was already 26 weeks along. For an unmarried woman in Vietnam at that time, the shame was immense.
Her family, however, refused to abandon the unborn child. In June 2000, Mrs. Khanh went to a hospital in Vinh City to give birth. Mother and daughter were both severely weakened.
Mrs. Khanh lost consciousness before she could even hold her baby. When she woke, she asked the hospital staff to care for the child while she recovered. When she returned, her daughter was gone.
She was only told that the baby had been taken. For years, Mrs. Khanh blamed herself. She had never married, devoting her life to searching for her daughter, hoping the child had been adopted by a loving family living a better life than she could have provided.
As she later said, “From that day until now, I never married. I dedicated my life to searching for my daughter. ”
The search came together unexpectedly. A relative named Lien watched a video about a Vietnamese-American university professor looking for her biological mother.
The birth date, hospital, and circumstances were painfully familiar. Lien contacted Mrs. Khanh immediately. With tears in her eyes, Mrs.
Khanh watched the video again and again. She contacted Xuan Vy, a volunteer helping Annabel with her search, and agreed to provide a DNA sample. After 25 years, mother and daughter finally met for the first time over a video call. Thousands of miles apart, they looked at each other in silence, searching for familiar features.
While awaiting DNA results, Xuan Vy asked Annabel if she hoped this woman was her mother. “Definitely,” she answered without hesitation. Mrs. Khanh, holding back tears, said in a faint voice that she was praying God would make this young woman the daughter she had searched for all these years.
A representative from Lucy Biological Institute announced the results: “According to DNA analysis, Mrs. Phan Thi Khanh and Annabel King are biologically related as mother and daughter. ” Annabel covered her mouth, tears filling her eyes. On the other side of the screen, Mrs.
Khanh wept as well. Twenty-five years of doubt dissolved in a single sentence. Annabel then asked the question she had carried her whole life: “Can you tell me why you gave me up? ” Mrs.
Khanh answered immediately: “I never gave you up. ” She explained she had left the baby in the hospital only because they were both so ill, and when she returned, her daughter was gone. Then she revealed the truth she had kept for 25 years: “From that day until now, I never married. I always searched for you.
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Even after DNA confirmed everything, Mrs. Khanh carried one remaining fear. “Are you angry with me? Can you forgive me?
” Annabel looked into her mother’s eyes and replied without hesitation: “I am not angry with you. I understand that every mother has her own reasons. I never blamed you, and I never held any grudge in my heart. ”
Mrs.
Khanh wept with relief. Annabel promised it did not matter whether her mother was rich or poor, she would always love her and would return to Vietnam soon so they could finally embrace face to face. For the first time in 25 years, neither of them had to search any longer.