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.
“‘The moment I said, ‘I’m fine,’ the world got wobbly. ‘Ashtyn, can you hear me? We need to get her OUT of here.’ I was in the ICU for 6 days and then released back into the care of my mom. I thought this was the end of it. It wasn’t.”
“I wore pants when it was hot, crossed my left leg over my right, and wore revealing clothes and WAY too much makeup to detract attention from my prosthesis. Their eyes bore holes into my soul.”
“I’ll never forget dropping her off at rehab in another state and just sitting there in the car sobbing, not wanting to leave her. It felt like I was leaving my own child.”
“From a painful pregnancy which had me dealing with a SLEW of crap, to a traumatic emergency C-section 10 days after my due date, I thought the worst was over. But I couldn’t have been MORE wrong.”
‘I woke up and decided to take a pregnancy test. I couldn’t explain it. Almost immediately, two lines showed up. Then, my phone started ringing. I looked down and saw our social worker from our adoption agency was calling.”
“I was ready to write him off, and I didn’t even invite him to the hospital. But he’d already arranged to be there and was right by my side. In fact, he never left.”
“He said, ‘When I came home and saw a room decorated for me and a house key, I was so overwhelmed I didn’t know HOW to respond.”
“An elderly lady responded. She DEMANDED to know why a stranger was knocking on her window. Imagine her shock to discover her birth granddaughter, born two decades earlier, was living in Canada!”
“I’d quit for 2 weeks and say, ‘See, I don’t have a problem! I think you misunderstood.’ I strolled up to the cottage and fixed a Bloody Mary, a really GOOD one.”
“A body which can produce a human being, make milk, and function daily is a HUGE blessing. There’s no need to place a toxic foreign object inside of it.”
