Now 16 and legally an adult, she is able to speak openly about her experiences for the first time and has also allowed the images of those early moments after the birth to be published.

Miss Middleton, who believes she has 'turned a corner' in her life, hopes to join the Army and prove that she deserves to see her child again.

She spoke yesterday of the time when she first felt that she would lose her daughter.

This came before the adoption was even official, when the baby went to live with her foster family and the teenager was allowed to see the child only every three months at a family centre.

A child herself: Tressa with her newly-born daughter

The young mother said: 'My daughter sometimes called me "Mummy" then one day she called me by my first name and called her foster carer "Mum". It really hurt and I burst into tears. Then she wouldn't come to me. She refused and would start screaming. It felt like every time I saw her I was losing her more and more.

'The adoptive parents gave her their surname. They've kept her first name the same, but hearing that her name had changed was heartbreaking. It's like they're turning my wee girl into someone different. She was dressed different and her hair was different. It was hard to see someone else bringing up my wee girl.'

Miss Middleton is not allowed to know where her daughter is living or see photographs, although the latest progress letter, from March, described the three-year-old as 'a very happy, chatty, self-confident and together little girl.'

Miss Middleton said: 'When I read it I just started crying. It says she can read numbers 0-9 and count to 20. That's all the things I wanted to teach her as her mum. It's wee simple things like that which affect me.

'I get upset when I see wee girls walking past with their mums. I miss my wee girl every day. I've kept all her clothes from when she was a baby. I keep under my pillow a wee pink Babygro and hat from when she was born.'

Miss Middleton, who now has only limited contact with her own family and lives in Dumfries, admitted, however, that adoption was in her daughter's 'best interests'.

But she added: 'It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I don't think I can give my daughter the life she needs just now.

'When I'm older I want to build a relationship with my daughter. I'm concentrating on sorting myself out so that one day I'll hopefully see my wee girl again. I love her to bits.'

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