Amanda Doulos is a digital editor for Love What Matters based in New York City. She will graduate from Binghamton University with a Bachelor of English Literature and Spanish in Spring 2023. She loves staying involved as vice president of the mock trial team and secretary of Spanish Honor Society. In her free time, she loves reading, traveling, and spending time with friends.
“They teach our children not just academics but so much more. They make our kids feel safe, happy, and loved, and for this, I will be forever grateful.”
“I constantly found myself afraid to eat. I sat between the sliding doors, wiping sweat off my forehead as I shakily finished the bottle of Coke. Nobody checked to make sure I was okay.”
“No matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t see my child’s future. I was going to have to live it, right next to him. NOBODY is going to come and take this away from us.”
“Imagine living in a world where you did not hear the hustle and bustle of this noisy world we live in. The voices of your mother or father during the first several years of your life. To not be able to hear your family say ‘I love you’ or hear their voices singing sweet lullabies.”
“My mom and doctors thought I was just another moody teenager. For a long time, I assumed what I was feeling was normal.”
“I wanted him so bad a friend gave me the seed I needed to plant him in my belly.”
“Operations and prosthetics included, our daughter has been a dream since birth.”
“She started to sign to me. ‘I don’t use sign language, I can hear and talk.’ I had unintentionally made a judgment about Deaf/HoH people, not realizing I’d judged myself in the process.”
“I was ignored by providers during my cries for help. Friends stopped asking me to hang out. My long-term partner was emotionally unavailable. I had to learn to pursue the life I deserved despite the labels.”
“Despite being deemed competent and fit by my state of residence to adopt, I was ill-prepared for all that comes with bringing a child from another family into my home.”
