Here is part 1.

I'm writing about the essays in the wonderful anthology of adoption writing, A Love Like No Other. It truly is a book I think that anyone who is hoping to adopt should read. It's not just a book about how wonderful adoption is - there's certainly some of that - but it's also a book about how complicated adoption is. Adoption is complicated because adoption involves people.

"Divorce, Adoption-Style," by Antoinette Martin, is one of the essays that I particularly enjoyed. Maybe I was drawn to it at first because it is my worst nightmare to lose my husband, so, like a moth to a flame, I gobbled up this essay.

Here's the deal with Antoinette: both of her children were adopted through open adoptions. What happens when you've promised to your child's birthmother that you're a stable, happy family, fit for her to place her child with, and then you break up? What happens to the children? Is it harder because they're adopted?

Life is so hard!

Thankfully, in this instance it seems as though things went as best as they possibly could. Yes, the writer was anxious to share her news with her children's birthmothers but the birthmothers were okay with the divorce. And yes, her children took it hard, but after some initial adjustment things seemed to have straightened out.

Deep breath. Deep breath. I enjoyed this essay. Kind of. Kind of not. I'm hoping it never, ever happens to me.

Continued in part 3: "Keeping it all in the family."