I was born with no arms and people have said I look like a T-Rex.
I ended up in an orphanage.
Uh, because my birth mother had me at the hospital and decided to leave without me.
There’s times I really struggled with.
She just left me there.
When I was b a half, an American Family adopted me.
People were usually surprised, like why did you pick her when I was a kid?
Probably around five or six, my mom probably just let me try to hold a brush.
I’m sure I tried with my hands and pretty quickly realized that my fingers aren’t strong enough.
So all I have is my feet.
I also use my feet to open doors, reach a mug out of the cupboard, straighten my hair.
Yeah, I mean anything that like is inconvenient.
To use my hands for bamia is a birth effect that causes underdeveloped limbs at Birth.
Definitely like presents challenges.
I have to adapt to the world and adapt to everything being made for people with hands, and that’s definitely been a journey growing up.
Um, other kids obviously notice that I look different.
Sometimes, you know I’d get the comments the stairs.
There’s definitely insecurity when you know, like you notice, people are staring at you.
It’s it’s constant.
You know.
Sometimes a kid will be like Ew.
What’s wrong with your arms?
And it’s like I was born different.
I was adopted at 4 and A2 by my parents, who are American.
My family helped me a lot growing up.
I had hope getting dressed until I learned how to do it myself.
My sister helped me do my hair.
Hey Babe, how are you?
I still get help when I don’t need it sometimes because it’s easier to have somebody just come expedite.
When and how did you meet Nathan?
So we met at church.
You know I was there with my family.
He was there with his before Nathan.
I didn’t really date a lot, but I felt like the guys you know maybe weren’t interested and I felt pretty insecure.
You know well, someone want to date someone like me when I was dating Nathan.
Um, it was really different than any relationships I had ever had previously.
He just genuinely respected me for who I was here.
We are 11 years later, married with a kid.
Okay, I’m going to get started on the lunch sandwiches.
When I found out I was expecting Matthew, it was scary, it.
Uh, how am I going to do this without arms?
I was scared to hold him.
I, you know, had to figure out how to nurse him change his diaper, but we figured it out.
I kind of hugged him and lifted, and uh, that’s still how I pick him up to the day.
Hey guys, I want to share with you one of my favorite weekend lunch ideas.
Uh, that we make, uh, for family lunch in 2021.
Matthew, he, he saw the Tik Tok app and was like we need to start doing Tik toks.
Putting myself out there was really scary.