CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An eastern Iowa woman has reunited with her son nearly 40 years after she placed him for adoption. Television station KCRG reports Cheryl Janss embraced Sam Lane at a Cedar Rapids airport Thursday. Janss, of Cedar Rapids, says she was 16 when Lane was placed for adoption. Lane, now 39 and living in the Dallas area in Texas, began searching for his mother about five years ago. The station says he used an ancestry research website and Facebook to make contact.

Janss says the adoption was aimed at giving her son a better life. Lane, who praised his adoptive parents, says he wanted to thank his biological mother for giving him life. The pair will spend a few days together before Lane returns to Texas on Sunday.