Mother and daughter reunited at last

If you're looking for a heart-warming story to cheer you on a winter's day, then look no further. We're welling up here in the Raisingkids' office about the story this morning of a mother of two who finally met her birth mother this week, 62 years after she'd been given up for adoption.

Annie Burris only discovered when her adoptive mother died in 1972 that she'd been adopted. But it was only recently, after she logged on to a genealogy website, that she found her birth family and got in touch. And this week she finally got to meet the woman who'd given her up for adoption.

Annie's mother Hilda had three children already when she became pregnant after a wartime affair. Although her husband, on returning from the war, agreed to bring the child up with she took the decision that it would be better to give her daughter up for adoption.

As you can imagine, it was an emotional reunion. 'It's all I've ever wanted,' Annie told the Daily Mail. 'It was quite overwhelming. I was so happy that I just wept… She suffers from short-term memory loss but she knew who I was straightaway. She went back into her shell after that but she held my hand. Never in a million years did I think I'd ever see my real mum. If only I had found her sooner.'

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