Ithaka: A Daughter's Memoir of Being Found [Hardcover]

Sarah Saffian is a fine and elegant writer, who as many previous reviewers have noted, grew up with money and comfort, and was found by the "perfect" birthparents. It is indeed hard to understand her reluctance to meet them--but the pain she suffered because of the contact is real, and I often cringed as I read what she felt, thinking that my son may have felt similar pain and disorientation at my contact.

Search and reunion is not a soap-opera nor a talk show--although much of what passes for wisdom in adoption reform groups and literature would make one think it was! Not all adoptees, nor all birthparents, are eager to be found--and those that are still must make huge adjustments to integrate the lost ones into their lives.

I hope that my son will find this book, and read it, and know that he is not alone in his fear and confusion at having "the dead" rise again as I did. I hope that all searching birthparents will read this book, not to be discouraged, but to stretch their minds and hearts with empathy for the adoptee, and the stresses that reunion can bring to some. I have seen many birthparents go into reunion expecting that the adoptee's life has somehow been on hold since the surrender, just waiting for the birthmother to return and pick up emotionally where they left off, as if a whole lifetime of family relationships were irrelevant.... Some support groups encourage this kind of thinking, by pandering to what the members want to believe, rather than what is, and taking a very one-sided and one-dimensional view of the whole complex issue of reunion. "Ithaka" makes us look at other possibilites--and that is ultimately better and more healing than unrealistic expectations and cartoon scenarios of reunion bliss. Sarah Saffian had performed a useful service for birthparents by writing her story, even though reading it sometimes hurt, and sometimes frustrated and annoyed. Read more ›