After spending more than nine months in Hanoi, Vietnam, waiting for her new daughter's visa to be approved, former Madison resident Karla Brendler and her daughter are finally coming home.

Brendler, a former kindergarten teacher in the Verona School District, is expected to arrive at her home in Iowa this morning after securing a visa for her newly adopted daughter, Madison -- named after her mother's hometown.

Since October, Brendler's parents, Doris and Bill Brendler, who live on Madison's East Side, have kept in touch with her and their granddaughter using the Internet voice-phone service Skype. Now the Brendlers are planning the homecoming party they've been dreaming about for months.

About 25 relatives and friends from Madison will travel to Iowa to welcome Karla and Madison home, "We are so excited."

Karla Brendler and now 19-month-old Madison were stuck in Vietnam after U.S. immigration authorities said they intended to deny Madison's orphan status -- making her ineligible for a visa -- citing concerns about safeguards Vietnam uses to ensure children aren't sold for adoption. Brendler didn't want to return to the United States without Madison and also didn't want to give her back to the orphanage with little chance of being readopted -- an option she wouldn't consider.

"But because Madison had been in the orphanage and with me for a combined 19 months, and no other information was found on her family despite our repeated attempts to find out what really happened, (authorities) determined that her parents had disappeared and that a visa was appropriate on humanitarian grounds," Karla Brendler said in an e-mail Thursday.

The Wisconsin State Journal first wrote about Brendler and Madison in May, including information about a benefit her family was having to help with Brendler's mounting expenses. The benefit and a garage sale raised more than $7,000, which was enough to cover Brendler's second bill for the services of a law firm in Vietnam.

Brendler's partner, Mandi Kowal, left Iowa on Wednesday and flew to Taipei, Taiwan, to meet Brendler and Madison so they could all fly home together.

"It is not an ideal situation with so little time to recover from jet lag, get Madison settled somewhat, see family and friends, get my kindergarten classroom set up and begin work on the 13th," Brendler wrote. "But then nothing about the last nine plus months has been ideal, so it will all work out and be fine because we will all be home together."

-- Gena Kittner

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