Jo Dillon, of Atherton in Queensland, Australia, discovered that blood is thicker than water when she traced her birth mother...

Finding her name in the phone book had been easy. It was an unusual name and there weren't many listings for it. Only four, in fact, and they were all her relatives.

I would discover, later on, that she had changed her name after leaving school. Asking for her by her real name had made my tale more convincing.

I had found my birth certificate when I was 12 years old. An afternoon rummage through my mother's wardrobe, one day while she was out shopping, had yielded the first and only confirmation of something I had never been told but had always felt: I was adopted.

I didn't share my discovery with anyone. For me, it was enough that I knew. I had always sensed that I didn't belong to my parents in the same way that my brother and sister, their own birth children, did. Now I understood why.

It was six years later, and on the eve of finishing high school, when I decided to make contact with my real mother. At the time it was a spur-of-the-moment decision, prompted by curiosity to know who she was, what she looked like, where she came from.

Looking back I can see a significance in that timing, which I wasn't consciously aware of. By finding out who she was I would find out who I am, an important thing to know when you're about to embark on your own adult life.

It was a quiet, well-spoken woman who answered the phone. It was her. Not knowing how else to approach the subject, I just blurted out my questions. I asked if she had put up a baby girl for adoption. She was cautious now, and asked who was calling. I said it was that daughter.

She told me, some months later, that she had almost dropped the phone. It was a phone call she always hoped she would one day receive, but that didn't prepare her for the reality of it.

As she lived only a few hours away from me, we arranged to meet each other about a week later.

I knew her as soon as I saw her walking out of the train station. Even at a distance, there was something familiar about her. I was not meeting a stranger. I now believe this to be instinctive in all of us: we know our kin.

It's hard to describe the emotions of such a reunion. They weren't obvious ones, like joy or relief. It was more like feeling the blank, empty spaces within my own psyche starting to be filled in.

So many unspoken questions were now receiving answers. I do remember the thrill at seeing we shared the same facial features. Having always been the fair-haired "odd one out" in a family of dark haired similars, this was a novelty I took great delight in.

I also remember the ease with which we talked to each other, about many things. There was a natural and obvious affinity between us. I consider myself fortunate to have been introduced to this bond, at an age when I could begin to appreciate it for what it was.	'For many birth mothers, adoption never marked a clean break'

I'm also fortunate in that it was so simple to find her. Adoption agencies say that for many people, searching for a biological parent can be a fairly quick process. Only a minority have the ordeal of a long and frustrating search.

I was in my 20s before raising the subject of my adoption with my adoptive parents, but I've never told them that I have contacted my real mother, and I doubt I ever will.

Now in their 70s, I feel that telling them will only stir up conflicting emotions and I want to spare them this.

After all, they have been my parents. They're the ones who raised me and cared for me. All my formative experiences have been with them. That doesn't get discounted simply because they didn't biologically produce me.

Things have changed enormously since 1965, when I was adopted.

The "clean break" model of the Adoption of Children Act 1965 reflected the notion that adoption marked a complete and permanent severance between the adoptee and the birth family, and that this complete severance would serve the needs of all parties involved. This model of severance was also a reflection of the social attitudes towards unmarried motherhood.

But for many birth mothers, the experience of the adoption had never marked a "clean break" in an emotional sense at all. They were often treated as the inconvenient factor in the adoption triangle with little, if any, consideration or counselling given to them.

I've heard many women describe how no family or friends were allowed to be with them during the birth, and they were refused permission to even see the baby afterwards.

Far from being given a fresh start, the unresolved emotions associated with the relinquishment, usually sadness, shame, guilt and anger, had continued to trouble them.

A recent New South Wales Parliamentary inquiry found that past adoption practices in that State were often misguided, unethical and, on occasions, illegal. The inquiry took evidence from hundreds of women and examined adoption practices over a 38-year period from 1950.

The inquiry report said women were often physically prevented from ever seeing their child, were coerced into signing consent forms and treated cruelly. It recommended a formal apology be given to those women who had suffered.

'I never felt anger or resentment towards her. If anything, I feel anger for her'	When I think of the experiences of these women, including my own mother, I'm saddened by the notion that it was considered better to whisk the baby away, rather than risk any bonding which might complicate the process.

The simple act of being able to hold and say hello to the life you've just produced would have gone a long way towards soothing the pain of relinquishment. It's the same at the other end of life: having the opportunity to say goodbye to a loved one goes a long way towards helping come to terms with their death.

My own mother felt she had to make it all up to me. She wanted my forgiveness for what she had done.

One example of this manifested whenever we were out shopping together. I learnt not to casually comment on how nice something looked, for fear she would rush to buy it for me, no matter how expensive or impractical the item was.

I had to explain that I understood the circumstances, both social and personal, that surrounded my adoption, and that I've never felt anger or resentment towards her because of it. If anything, I feel anger for her.

The practice of adoption began to decrease with the introduction of the supporting mother's benefit in 1973. By the mid-1970s, legislation designed to remove legal discrimination against ex-nuptial children (as they were now to be called) was introduced throughout Australia.

By the late 1970s, the number of healthy new-born babies surrendered for adoption had commenced what was to become a steep decline.

Nowadays, adoption is conducted in a far more open and enlightened manner. Adoption agencies, for example, now advise adopting parents to inform the child of their adoptive status.

Strangely enough, I find myself in two minds about this.

Perhaps this is why: My adoptive parents told me of how they had gone to the parish priest for advice on the "to tell or not to tell" issue. The priest told them they were wrong to act as if I was their own child.

Instead, he informed them, they should always emphasis to me that I did not belong to them. I'm immensely grateful to them for regarding this as bad advice and choosing to ignore it.

Hopefully, what I've learnt from these experiences will make me a better parent myself. And what have I learnt? That there's truth in the saying "blood is thicker than water".

But I've also learnt that we, social animals that we are, have an innate capacity for love and nurturing, one which can transcend boundaries and genetics, and which ensures that we are all part of the web of life.