Eileen Taylor-Baines choked up as she recalled the first letter she received from her daughter 30 years after she gave her up for adoption.
"She opened it by saying, 'I have thought about you every day of my life since I was 10 years old'," the Mount Maunganui woman said.
Mrs Taylor-Baines, who was raised in Ireland, was prompted to tell her story as an inspiration to others after seeing the critically acclaimed movie Philomena, which is based on true story of a mother's 50-year search for a son she had to give up for adoption because he was conceived out of wedlock.
Mrs Taylor-Baines was 19 when she fell pregnant with her first daughter and was sent away to a Protestant-run mother and baby home, similar to the one in Philomena, in Dublin six weeks before she was due to give birth in 1964.
"It was the worst disgrace you could ever bring on yourself or on your family to fall pregnant as a young girl," she said. "It was a very severe place. You had to do housework all day."