Couple returns from Vietnam with adopted baby

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. Nov. 23, 2007 (KGO) (KGO) -- We have an update for you now on a San Rafael woman who was adopted as a baby from Vietnam and returned to Vietnam to adopt her own daughter. The family is home and we caught up with them today, and they showed us some home footage of their incredible journey.

"This is Tallia walking into the orphanage. There's a first set of buildings and a long a pathway that leads to the living quarters for the babies. Once we got inside it was a chaotic scene," said Mark Bodenhammer.

Tallia hart and her fiancé, Mark Bodenhammer are back home in San Rafael after a three week trip to Vietnam to adopt their baby girl, Lola Elizabeth.

"You can't believe it really. Oh my gosh, and you want to make sure this is her and it's yours. It's amazing," said Tallia Hart.

Tallia was adopted as a baby from Vietnam, so she was thrilled to be able to give Lola the same gift of love.

"We're just so lucky and so fortunate for me to able to have my mom give the life she gave me and then doing that for someone else, it was really incredible," said Hart.

The trip to the orphanage was grueling and they both got sick from either the food or water. Tallia wound up in the hospital for dehydration at one point. They were exhausted before they ever set eyes on their baby.

"We had traveled for nearly 30 hours to get there, and we got in and the next morning we had to get up at 5 a.m. in the morning to get on the bus to go to the orphanage,

"Three and a half hour bus ride," said Hart.

"Yeah," said Bodenhammer.

They met Lola and the nanny who care for her and began to get to know their baby, and they were given the clothes Lola was wearing when she was abandoned.

Once the Vietnamese paperwork was complete, there was an official ceremony where Lola was handed over to her new parents. Then, the American embassy had to sign off before they could come home.

Tallia's mother, Elizabeth, flew from Austin, Texas, to greet the new family at San Francisco International Airport.

She remembers the first moment she saw Tallia as a baby.

"I held her for about 30 seconds and my mother was there and that was the end of my holding. My mother got a hold of her; kind of the same thing. It's what I always hoped for. That she would give back what she got. There's no greater gift," said Grandmother Elizabeth Steen.

Click here to read Tallia's adoption 30 years ago

To read Tallia and Mark's blog on the experience, visit gentlewater.blogspot.com

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