Annie put her calculus textbook away and grabbed her laptop from her bed. With her calculus home work finished it was time to start on her English paper. She decided to check her email to see if her teammates had sent her the information she wanted for their biology project on the life cycle of starfish. A name jumped out among the junk mail, and dance studio messages. Teddy Altman, in a day her birth mom had written her back. Annie cautiously clicked on the email. Reading it she realized that her mother had always wanted her and had always loved her. She smiled at the little bear line her dad also called her little bear, apparently for the funny snoring sound she made as a baby but reading her birth mom goes by Teddy she can also see where the bear name came from. Better yet Teddy wanted to see her. Annie's biggest fear when she emailed Teddy was that she would never hear back or that she didn't want to get to know Annie. Now Annie wondered if Teddy had other children or if she was married. Better yet Teddy was visiting UBC in a few weeks, maybe they could have coffee then.

Annie quickly typed a response to Teddy's email. Responding to her three questions and asking three of her own.

Hi Teddy,

I'm really grateful you wrote me back. I wasn't sure if you would. If you have time to meet when you're at UBC I would like to see you. You're here the last week of November? I have a week of classes after that before exams so it's a good week to meet up. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm supervising a pre-teen dance at the rec center after classes and have the first highland competition of the season on Saturday. I'm looking forward to "Haunted Highland" this weekend, we always do the Spooky Sword at this one where I only find out which steps I'm doing when I'm the next dancer to go onstage. Do you want to try to skype Sunday afternoon? I usually skype with Chris right after church on sunday but could do anytime after 2. I'm glad you're on the west coast, it makes it easier to time things. I like your idea of asking each other three questions at a time although your second question is a big one and I may need a few more days to answer that one but I didn't want to leave you hanging today.

1. A) I think I'm happy, I don't have anything to be unhappy about.

B) There are a lot of things that make me happy. My favourite place is on the boat at the fishing cabin up the coast or in the dance studio, when I'm in those places the time just stopped. I also really like new books, silly knee socks with animals on them for dance class, coffee and movie nights.

2. This is a loaded question. I think the first thing that comes to mind is that I'm not angry with you for giving me up. If you hadn't given me to my parents I wouldn't be me. They say I'm the greatest gift they ever received. I have always wondered what you look like, my parents never showed me any pictures of you.

3. My parents call me Annie or Little Bear, apparently when I was a baby I snored and it sounded like tiny baby bear growls. I only get called Annabeth when I'm in trouble or if Jessica wants to make me angry. A lot of my friends call me Anne. I prefer Annie or I guess since your a parent Little Bear is okay.

My three questions for you:

1. Why did you choose to be a doctor?

2. What is your favourite thing to do?

3. Do you have a family?

Please let me know when it would work for you to skype with me.

Love,

Annie.

Annie pressed send and pulled out her notes for her english paper. She could hear her friends laughing in the living room and the opening soundtrack for Glee. She decided to take her notes and join her roommates.