An Interesting Day

I had an interesting phone call on my cell phone while I was at work today. It came kind of out of the blue and it upset me a little. I'm over it now, but for a half hour or so it really bothered me. My phone rang at about 9:00. I didn't recognize the number, but for some reason I decided to answer it anyway. I don't usually answer my cell phone at work, espescially if I don't know who it is. For whatever reason, I decided to answer it this time. It was a woman. She said this is so and so and I am responding to your inquiry about your birth mother. Huh? What inquiry? I didn't submit any inquiry. She names off a website that she advertises on. It is one of the Yahoo groups I subscribe to. Then it came back to me. I had seen her advertisement on
the group and for some reason I decided to fill out the form. Then I promptly forgot about it. I have a very short attention span. So she calls me today and tells me that based on the information I submitted, she was able to find the name and current address of my birth mother and would I like this information? And I'm not sure what to say. I don't know if I want this information. I don't even know why I filled out the inquiry. I was having a bad night and was worried about my health. I was reading up on the type of kidney disease that I have and was stressing out over the percentage of people with this disease that end up needing kidney transplants. It's twenty-five percent. I know that isn't a terribly large percent, but I still don't like the odds. My husband has already offerred(God I love him), but what if he isn't a match? So I was thinking maybe I might have biological relatives out there somewhere that might be a match(not that they would give me a kidney. They don't even know me). But that's why I filled out the form. Not because I want to find my "mother". I already have a mother. She died ten years ago. She will always be my mother. No one can replace her. But when someone is on the phone with you and they are asking you if you would like to know information that you have wondered about on and off about your whole life, it is hard to know what to say. So the first thing I did was ask "How much?". To which she replies "My fee is six hundred dollars". "What?!!! That's extortion!" (O.K., I didn't actually say that. I just thought it). What I said was, "Well,that's a lot of money and I certainly can't make a decision without speaking to my husband." And then I hung up on her. I felt angry. Really angry. What right does this woman have to know intimate information about me that I can't know? What right does she have to ask me to pay her six hundred dollars(that I don't have) to know this information? It is so unfair. Like I said, I don't even know if I want the information. I certainly don't want a relationship with this woman(my "mother"). I don't even know her. But it would be nice to know of any other health issues that may run in my family. Why do all of the laws protect the birth mothers, with no regard for the "children"? And then I started thinking about Sophie. How it will likely be impossible for her to ever know any information about her birthparents. And the anger turned to sadness. Sadness for Sophie,and for her birthmother, who will never really know if she is O.K. And I though maybe I should forget about this. Maybe it will make my daughter feel better to know that I know how she feels. I don't know my birthmother either. And it's O.K.