I'd always dreamed of having a brother or sister, but I knew that due to my adoptive mother's inability to have children of her own, this would never become a reality.

Or so I thought...

It was just an average Saturday morning, when my parents sat me down at our dining room table and told me that there was somebody I had to meet. When they explained that the unfamiliar man sat with them was my biological father, I almost had a panic attack.

I was shocked

I had always known that I was adopted but I had never had the desire to meet my real parents - I was too happy with Sam and Anna. We lived in a large house and I had never been denied anything: skiing holidays, amazing clothes, the latest trainers. They were even relaxed when it came to boyfriends. They seemed like the perfect parents.

"What?" I exclaimed. I couldn't believe that after all these years, my real dad was here.

"Hello, Gemma." he said.

I turned to my parents, unable to think of what to say. Sam and Anna were completely understanding, explaining that they had been in contact with my real Dad, Derek, for some time now. They told me that, tragically, my real Mum had passed away during childbirth and that Derek hadn't been able to cope with "both of us".

More surprises

"Both of us?" I asked, "What do you mean?"

Derek took a deep breath and told me some news that I had never expected, not in my wildest dreams. It turned out I was to gain more than another father that day; I had a twin sister!

My whole world had been turned upside down. It was like something from "The Parent Trap"!

Page 2 of 2

Nervous

"Well," I said, in a total state of shock, "Do I get to meet her?"

"Of course", Derek replied.

"We were going to invite her to stay with us for a while, but we wanted to check with you first, Gemma." Anna explained.

I nodded; I definitely wanted to see my twin although I felt really nervous. What would she be like? Would we look the same? Would we get on? One thing was for sure, though: life would never be the same again.

Seeing double

Two weeks later, the day arrived. I was due to meet Stella, as I now knew she was called, that afternoon.

When I opened the door, and saw her standing there, we both burst into tears. It was like looking into a mirror. We connected instantly; every fear I had experienced over the past two weeks vanished as I saw my twin for the first time.

We talked for hours, realising we had so much in common. We both loved the Georgia Nicolson books, Chinese food and BBC Slink! We'd even been to the same Harry Potter convention and not realised!

Then I learnt the darker truths of Stella's past. Unlike me, she had not been so privileged. She lived in a part of town which had a high crime rate, and had never had a proper holiday or Christmas present. Suddenly, I realised just how lucky I was.

A new life

Now, we are definitely best friends. Although we still live with our respective parents, Stella comes to stay almost every weekend and we bought her a laptop for Christmas so we could keep in touch throughout the week via email and Bebo.

We celebrated our first ever joint birthday party last year and now we never look back at the time we didn't know each other, only forward to the fun we're going to have together.