She had an unexpected cellmate.
Amanda Tarver, a Miami, Florida, wife and mother of two, discovered she was pregnant two weeks after she was put behind bars on a drug conviction.
“I didn’t even know if I’d make it to full-term because of my stress and anxiety levels,” she said.
The former convict was sentenced to 24 months in the clink after helping her husband (then-boyfriend) Legend, sell drugs by transferring money — and receiving packages at her apartment.
“I really thought my life was over,” Tarver said. “When they told me the verdict, I was in shock.”
Her partner in crime was given 47 months for conspiracy to import a controlled substance.
Tarver, 34, a first-time offender, served her sentence at Coleman Federal Prison Complex in Florida from 2015 to 2016.
While she and Legend remained in the big house, her son Dorian, 6, at the time, had to stay with her mother-in-law Maria.
As a young mother, she “expected to receive a warning or probation” but realized that didn’t matter, “I didn’t know how to explain to Dorian that I would be gone for so long,” she added.
The couple’s love story started when they locked eyes at a college bar in 2012. At the time, Legend was selling illegal drugs to help pay for his education and support his family.
“A lot was done out of survival and what I felt my options were at the time,” he confessed. “I was the oldest sibling to a single mom and was the man of the house helping to pay the bills and rent.”
Meanwhile, Tarver didn’t think much of Legend’s side hustle because party drugs were popular in the city they lived in, she claims.
“I was young and naive and didn’t think of it as something terrible or really consider that we might be harming people,” Tarver said.
However, the law eventually caught up with the pair — landing Tarver in the clink with a baby on the way.
When she turned seven months pregnant, Tarver was transferred to a special unit for pregnant inmates, which she describes as “a warehouse with no windows and thin beds.”
She felt like she was on an “emotional rollercoaster,” awaiting the days she could give birth.
The young mom gave birth to Legend Jr. behind bars.
“It was horrible to hear all that Amanda was going through, knowing I couldn’t be there to provide for my wife,” Legend admitted.
Tarver’s newborn stayed with her for three months before being sent to live with his grandmother Maria and brother Dorian.
While both locked up, the couple remained connected through letters as their only form of communication.
“When you’re in prison, the only thing you have to look forward to is correspondence from loved ones,” Tarver said. “[Legend and I] were so close yet so far away, having been incarcerated in the same compound but on opposite sides.”
The letter exchanges allowed them to discuss their future plans — including getting married — once they were both released.
“We focused on getting back on our feet first, finding jobs and getting back into the swing of things with our two boys,” Tarver said. “But then we looked at the bigger picture.”
The couple’s experience pushed them to launch a charity called “300 Letters” — inspired by the hundreds of letters they exchanged while behind bars.
The organization offers free family therapy, financial assistance for things like childcare and empowerment support groups to families with minor children recovering from the traumas of incarceration.
“An issue for me was coming back from prison with low self-esteem, low confidence levels, and having to be a good parent again while building my professional persona back up,” Tarver confessed.
“In prison, I felt that my identity was broken — I felt like a number.”
The project was rooted in Tarver and her husband’s struggles to readjust in society after being incarnated.
“We explored all the different things that we went through as a couple, as parents, and what our children went through — and that’s how we started to develop our programs,” Legend shared.
300 Letters has now helped approximately 400 families, according to the organization.
“We work to strengthen that family structure and lessen the impact on the children,” Legend continued. “We want to break that cycle.”
“A lot of people hear about us through word-of-mouth, which I think shows the amount of parents that want to prioritize their family and navigate the most positive life possible after this experience,” Tarver said.
