Well, we've been friends since college. We met in 1986 when we both went to a play a long way away from our dorm and walked back together after so that neither of us had to be alone in the dark. We'd seen each other around but hadn't ever introduced ourselves before. She stood up in our wedding, and we stood up at hers. That meant that there were decades of history before the problem and that our husbands were still friends.

I think it just never occurred to her that having a small child completely alters one's priorities. At this point, her daughter is about 23 months, so she's been dealing with the very intensive parenting stuff. They adopted a safe surrender baby with pretty much no notice, just a phone call saying, "There's a baby. You can take her home tomorrow if you want her." So her life got upended without the more usual months of planning and figuring things out. They'd been trying to adopt for years, but having it suddenly actually happen, well.