“I had one single man - a husband”: how a woman contracted HIV from her husband and found out about her status only after becoming pregnant. Husband has HIV: is it possible for a woman to avoid infection? Planning for pregnancy if the husband is HIV-positive

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The adoptive mother tells the story of the adoption of an HIV+ child.

Husband persuaded to refuse therapy

Dasha is a child about whom they say "born in love." A movie could be made based on her story. Father and mother loved each other, but the marriage had obstacles, and even despite the pregnancy of Dasha's mother, the young people had to leave.

Soon, Dasha's mother met another man who supported her and proposed. But the groom turned out to be HIV-positive. She and the baby both got sick.

For Dasha's mother, this was such a shock that at first she wrote a refusal, and when she came to her senses, they did not return the child. So she was discharged: without a child and with a diagnosis.

In vain she tried to find out about the fate of her daughter. Life was cut short at the age of 28 - her husband, an HIV dissident, convinced her to refuse therapy.

It was precisely because of his dissidence that this man did not tell Dasha's mother about his diagnosis either: after all, there is no such virus, which means there is no illness either.

She died without having time to meet Dasha, whom she did not stop looking for and found a few months before her death.

Dasha spoke with her mother on the phone (they lived in different cities), waited for the holidays to see each other, but met at the funeral. For about an hour, Dasha did not leave her mother's coffin, peered, absorbed every line in order to remember forever.

Katia, foster mother of 12-year-old Dasha with HIV+.

In that orphanage, children were dying like flies.

Photo from steemit.com

- Does Dasha hold grudges against her parents, against “fate”?

- Dasha is a very bright person, and loves her mother. It was not difficult for her to forgive, she understands that her parents themselves are victims. She has two mothers, my own and me. Both are very dear to her.

- How did Dasha get into your family?

- We learned about Dasha from volunteers, they visited the orphanage, where something strange was going on, and offered to take her away. They came for her, and the local doctor began to dissuade her, arguing that she was still not a tenant: three of them had already died.

When we saw how the kids were kept, our hair on our heads began to stir. The staff lived in fear of getting infected, so they didn’t really wash the children - they put them under running water and put on diapers for a day (we treated the consequences of such hygiene for a year).

But the worst thing is that the prescriptions of the doctors of the regional AIDS center were not respected, and the medicines, indiscriminately, who was prescribed what, were added ... to the porridge.

The calculation is simple: the children are hungry - they will eat. But one of the syrups was bitter, someone won hunger and the children ate, but Dasha could not. As a result, she was left without food and, most importantly, without treatment. She developed a high viral load and a huge weight deficit. She didn't really have long to live.

The fact that she got out is a miracle. I am grateful to the doctors of our AIDS center, who managed to reduce the load to undetectable and save Dasha. All this happened more than 10 years ago, after that incident, orphanages and orphanages began to be monitored, and thank God, now such an attitude is more an exception than a rule.

"We Lived One Day"

Image: RIA Novosti

When we took Dasha away, we told ourselves that if she dies, we can at least give her a human burial. And then every day passed - as a day of life, a happy life, which is valuable in itself, and not for the future.

I told myself - even if she had a little left, let her live these days happily. Until Dasha's condition stabilized - for about a year, we lived without looking ahead.

Now Dasha lives a normal life - to study at school, is seriously involved in music and dancing. She is our engine. She has so much love and willingness to give it that it energizes everyone. I do not know about her and my other children, how long they will live, but I hope that their days will be filled with love and happiness.

- You yourself were not afraid of the diagnosis?

“When the volunteers showed me the photo, I realized that this is my girl, and I just can’t leave her there. Of course, it was scary, I knew almost nothing and was worried not only for myself - we already had children.

Then I went to the doctor of the AIDS center, he explained everything. But as a suspicious person, it seemed to me that two opinions are better than one, and my husband and I went to another AIDS center. After we thoroughly understood the issue, the fear went away.

- Have there been situations where you were lost and did not know what to do?

- Now one of the children can finish eating an apple for Dasha, drink from one mug, but the first month, while the viral load has not yet dropped to undetectable values, there were moments of panic. I remember older children who had already grown out of diapers, when they saw a bottle-nipple, they began to hunt for it with each other.

Once, going into the kitchen, I saw Polina drinking from Dasha's bottle. I got worried and called the doctor. But she reassured me – this is not how HIV is transmitted.

“We told our daughter about the diagnosis after the mother’s funeral”

Photo courtesy huffpostmaghreb.com

- How did you tell your daughter about the illness?

- After the funeral of Dasha's mother, we managed to talk on this topic. She was worried, it was important for her to know why her mother died young. I explained that this happened due to the fact that my mother did not take medicine, and a person lives a long time in therapy. Therefore, Dasha treats her treatment very responsibly.

Most of all she was worried about whether she could have a family and children. And she was delighted to learn that now therapy allows this: there are many happy couples who have healthy children, and the spouse does not get infected.

- Do you hide the status of the child from others?

“We have a wonderful care and clinic. I don't reveal the diagnosis unnecessarily, but I don't tend to be overly secretive either. When we went to the kindergarten, I told the director, the nurse and the teacher. At first I was afraid of their reaction, but I did not meet anything but a friendly attitude and support.

It was also at school and in circles.

All close friends know, in which I am sure that they will not chat in vain. But I do not dedicate Dasha's classmates or friends to the diagnosis.

This is her life, and when she grows up, she will decide whether to tell everyone or a narrow circle about this.

— What do you think is the most important thing in the problem of HIV, what do you need to know about?

— In our country, many still believe that HIV is a problem of marginal strata of society or people of non-traditional orientation. And whether a person is infected is determined “by appearance”, by status: “he does not look like a patient.”

However, it is enough to walk around the AIDS center and you will meet the same people with whom you ride the subway, work, study. They look perfectly healthy. Therefore, the expectation that HIV is a disease of the marginalized, or that one can tell about the disease by its appearance, is an outdated stereotype.

For me personally, because of Dasha and her mother, the topic of HIV dissidence is important. There are entire communities promoting that there is no HIV, it's all a conspiracy of pharmaceutical companies. The consequences are the most tragic: without informing the partner about the disease (what to report if there is no HIV), they infect him, they die themselves.

But the worst thing is when a child with HIV, whether born or adopted, is deprived of therapy. In such cases, if you do not intervene in time, the child dies, and there are many such cases.

And there are those who know about their diagnosis, but still do not take therapy.

— But why would people who recognize HIV refuse therapy?

- It happens - they don’t see the point in therapy, they don’t believe in its action.

Once at the AIDS Center, I got into a conversation with two teenagers who didn't want to take therapy because they don't value their lives, they don't care what happens next.

They are in an active search, they will not warn about HIV, they will not be protected - they do not care anymore. They go on a breakaway and do not drink drugs, their viral load is huge. Imagine how many they will infect.

Unfortunately, such situations are not uncommon, they need to be dealt with. That is why you should not be afraid to talk about HIV.

Another story

The number of couples where the husband has HIV is increasing every day. The life of a woman with an infected partner has already become so commonplace that many even forget about the difficulties that the couple had to endure and the problems that appear daily in the process of relationships. One of the most pressing is the issue of safe conception, because everyone is interested in the birth of a healthy child.

My husband was diagnosed with HIV: what to do?

In such a situation, first of all, you should familiarize yourself with the possible ways of infection, in order to protect yourself in every possible way and analyze whether the pathogen could also be transmitted to a woman.

To date, the following variants of infection are distinguished:

1. Sexual. Infection is possible if the husband has a positive HIV test, and the sexual intercourse was unprotected. In this case, intercourse can be any - anal, vaginal. Even coitus interruptus performed without a condom carries a huge risk of infection.
2. With the help of blood. If a married couple is addicted to drugs or both partners used the same syringe to administer a drug for colds, flu. Infection is also possible when the husband has HIV, and the wife used his razor or toothbrush (if there are obvious traces of blood on it).

Regarding life with an HIV-infected husband, in this case it is very important to support your chosen one, because most patients simply stop fighting for their existence when a loved one leaves.

Planning for pregnancy if the husband is HIV-positive

Just a few years ago, the wife of an HIV-infected man could not even dream of giving birth to a healthy child, so many discordant couples remained childless or took the baby from an orphanage. The latter was in most cases not approved, so it was rather difficult to obtain the consent of the guardianship authorities.

But, thanks to significant discoveries in the field of antiretroviral treatment, the situation has changed dramatically. At this stage, immunodeficiency refers to controlled diseases, which was not the case before. This has contributed to the fact that HIV-infected men are getting married more and more often, because without taking into account some of the features associated with sexual intercourse, you can not need anything and live a full life. And subject to a number of conditions - to give birth to a completely healthy child.

If the husband is sick with HIV, but the wife is not, then the decision to conceive a baby should be balanced, since the risk of transmitting the infection to the fetus during the physiological method of fertilization is quite high. Therefore, if you want to have a baby, you should consult a doctor to find out the best method.

In addition, if the husband is HIV-positive and it was decided to conceive, then the partner must perform a number of actions:

1. It is necessary to give up bad habits. As you know, nicotine and alcoholic substances adversely affect the performance of spermatozoa.
2. If the husband has a positive HIV, then he must be tested for the presence of secondary infections in the body, the transmission of which is carried out sexually.
3. A prerequisite in a couple who decide to have a child, where the husband is HIV-positive, the wife is HIV-negative, will be the passage of a spermogram by a man. With the help of this study, you can determine the number of available spermatozoa and the level of their activity. These features directly affect the process of conception.
4. Compliance with the rules of proper nutrition. You should add more foods containing vitamins, trace elements and protein to your diet.

Methods for safe conception in couples where the man is HIV positive, the woman is HIV negative

At this stage, couples where the woman is healthy and the man has HIV can conceive a healthy child using the following methods:

1. Sperm cleansing. As you know, the seminal fluid consists of a certain number of spermatozoa and a viscous part. In turn, the retrovirus is contained in inactive germ cells and a liquid component. During the cleansing process, active spermatozoa are separated from the infected seminal fluid, and then injected into the uterine cavity. In this case, the husband cannot infect his wife or future fetus with HIV infection. Fertilization is necessarily carried out during the period of ovulation in a woman.
2. Use of donor sperm. If the husband is HIV-positive and the wife is not, some doctors recommend using donor biological material, in such situations the risk of infection of the partner and the baby is zero.
3. ARV therapy. In the case of successful antiretroviral therapy, the likelihood of transmission from a man to a woman is significantly reduced. This is due to a decrease in the level of viral load in semen and blood. In such situations, physiological conception is possible.

Husband HIV negative, wife positive: what to do?

If the situation is completely opposite, there are slightly different ways to conceive a child:

1. ECO. Fertilization is performed without sexual intercourse, the method can only be performed in a hospital setting.
2. Artificial insemination of spermatozoa into the uterine cavity. The sperm of a healthy man is injected into the uterus of an infected woman using a special catheter.
3. ARV therapy. Identical to that carried out in the case of an infected partner.

It is much worse for couples where a woman and a man are HIV-infected. The probability of infection of the child is almost 100%. Therefore, doctors recommend that such couples refuse to have a child, in which case adoption is preferable.

Orthodoxy: if the husband is HIV-infected

The question of women about how to live with an HIV-infected husband is completely imbued with the fear of contracting this disease. But according to the laws of Orthodoxy, this should not be. A woman is the “neck”, and a man is the “head”, therefore, if a loved one has this disease, the church strictly prohibits leaving him.

It is noted that religion has helped a huge number of women answer the question "Husband has been diagnosed with HIV: what to do?". And, as a rule, most of them remained with their husbands until the end of their days, arguing that, despite the illness, their life together was the happiest and will forever remain in their memory.

Many men are mentally much weaker than women, and immunodeficiency for a long time can unsettle them. That is why wives are encouraged to take their partners to church so that they can confess (reveal all their fears), pray, and begin the fight against the disease with renewed vigor.

The main thing is that a man does not feel lonely. The psychological attitude directly affects the quality and length of life of the infected person and all members of his family, especially his wife and children.

Every year the global situation with HIV infection is only getting worse. And often there are families where both spouses or one of them are infected. Husband and wife may know about it in advance, or they may become infected while already married.

The principles of living together with an HIV-infected person, building a full-fledged family with him and organizing everyday life have their own specifics.

When a person learns that he is HIV-positive, he needs the support of loved ones. The main person providing assistance to the patient is most often his spouse - husband or wife. A healthy person living in the same apartment with an HIV-infected person must remember that the immunodeficiency virus is not transmitted by household means.

Thus, it is impossible to get infected through:

• handshakes;
• embrace;
• conversations;
• using the same household items.

All this is safe for a healthy spouse, with the exception of contact of his damaged skin with infected biological fluids: blood, semen, vaginal secretions. Therefore, answering the question of whether an infected person is dangerous in a family, one can answer with accuracy: no, when all the rules of cohabitation are observed.

For a patient with such a serious illness, it is important to feel the support and support of a loved one, to know that he was not abandoned in trouble.

Planning pregnancy with HIV in partners

Sooner or later, the husband and wife come to the decision to conceive and have a child. And the question immediately arises: is it possible with an infected spouse? There is a lot of information on this topic. However, each case requires an individual approach.

Healthy children are born in such families, whose parents responsibly approached conception and observed all the prescriptions and recommendations of doctors.

You can live your whole life with an infected person, love him, give birth to children from him and not get infected with HIV. The only thing worth remembering every day is that sexual contacts with the genitals of the spouse should always be as protected as possible. To do this, you must use a condom every time you have intercourse.

How to live with an HIV-infected husband?

Undoubtedly, women who learn about their husband's illness need time to come to terms with this fact. Over time, love for a spouse develops into a desire to have a child from him. How does the conception of children occur when the husband is HIV-positive and the wife is negative?

Here are the possible options for the onset of a normal pregnancy:

1. Sperm cleansing, i.e. separation of spermatozoa from seminal fluid. In this case, only active spermatozoa that do not contain HIV are used for fertilization (retroviruses are found in the liquid part of the semen and in inactive germ cells). Sperm infusion is carried out in the middle of the menstrual cycle, and at the same time they do not infect either the woman or the unborn child.
2. Donor material. If it is not possible to carry out the first method of fertilization, doctors recommend using donor sperm. Unfortunately, not all men agree to this method.
3. antiretroviral therapy. If the husband undergoes a course of treatment before planning the conception of a baby, this will give him the opportunity to conceive a child naturally. In this case, the probability of infection of the wife through contact with blood and semen is minimized by reducing the viral load.

If you wish to have children to an infected man as part of conception planning.

The wife is HIV-infected, but the husband is not

In cases where the wife has, and the husband is healthy, it is necessary to choose other ways to conceive a child. These include:

1. In vitro fertilization (IVF). The implementation of this method of conception is possible only in a hospital. To do this, a mature egg is taken from the wife, and from the husband - his sperm. In this case, direct fertilization occurs in the conditions of finding germ cells outside the female body - in a test tube. After that, a certain number of embryos are implanted in the wife's uterine cavity.
2. Artificial insemination. This method is characterized by the collection of sperm from a healthy man, which is injected into the reproductive organs of a woman with the help of a special catheter in a hospital. This process is carried out during the period of the expected ovulation of the wife. After that, the conception and attachment of the embryo in the uterine cavity are monitored.
3. Physiological conception against the background of the use of antiretroviral therapy.

Thus, modern medicine offers several methods for conceiving a healthy child in couples where one of the spouses is infected with the immunodeficiency virus. Things are a little worse for couples where both spouses are sick. In this case, infection of the baby occurs in almost 100% of cases. However, this problem also has a solution. Infected people who want to become parents must scrupulously follow the recommendations of doctors.

Maria1986

Good afternoon! 2 days ago my world collapsed, I found out that my husband is infected with HIV. He hid it from me. I can’t tell anyone close to me about this, I need an outside perspective on the situation. My status is not known to me, 1.5 years ago it was negative and we used contraception.
We have known each other for 2.5 years, a beautiful romance, we are from different countries, six months ago a beautiful wedding on the ocean, I moved to his country. Every day I thanked fate for him, he loves me very much, at least it seemed to me so, a lot of plans for the future, life is a fairy tale. My husband is a well-known person in his area, a philanthropist, a public figure, a believer ... all this did not fit me with the fact that he could deceive me.
In matters of sex and everything related to diseases, I am very scrupulous, even too much. And HIV is something that I have been afraid of all my conscious life, although I have never had any risks before. Even at the initial stage of the relationship, I asked about the absence of infection and when the tests were done, he said that everything was OK, I took my word for it, since the relationship was at the very beginning, and they lived in different countries, especially since in my eyes he was a person trustworthy ... Before the wedding, I asked for tests, and provided mine. Sent tests. All infections are negative.
We live calmly, we rejoice, we returned from vacation, we are planning the next one.
I accidentally found pills without packaging, googled, the trail led to HIV. I immediately asked him, said that these are dietary supplements from Thailand, I had to poke my nose into Google ... he admitted ...
He always used a condom, but I'm very suspicious .. now I remembered a bunch of situations when sex was not "sterile", I apologize for the details, contact with sperm with my hands, at first there was oral sex, without ejaculation, once the condom remained in the vagina until ejaculation. ..Penetrating sexual contact is always in a condom. He's been on therapy for 4 years and has a viral load of 0, according to the HIV infection data, the risks tend to be zero, but of course they're not zero.
The question is how to forgive? And forgive? He cries, says that he was afraid of losing me, that he was afraid, he believed that he could not infect me. What science says in principle is that infection is unlikely with a viral load of 0 and using a condom. I wanted to drag it out, apparently, until the question of children arises ... I believe that my health was put at risk, I consider it mean not to inform me about this, to fake tests. I had the right to know this, to decide whether to put my life at risk or not, to get married or not, to leave everything and move to another country or not. He says that he did not want to lose me, and tried to do everything so as not to infect me. At first, he didn’t even finish inside me in a condom, then I insisted on it, I thought that he didn’t like something, but he just wanted to reduce the risks. But nevertheless, he followed my lead, was afraid to give himself away somehow, he knew that I might suspect something was wrong. However, if I knew about HIV and allowed sex, I would be much more careful about everything. And I had the right to it, this is my life and my health, but he decided for me. He was probably right that he was afraid of losing me, if it had happened before, probably fear would have overcome love and I would have left him, I don’t know, it’s hard to say for sure now ... But he became a part of my life, we probably became one , I love him, he is probably the best thing that happened in my life, although she was good and successful before him, but with him she became even better, I was very proud of him Weeping both ... I don’t know how to live on.
Leave a person because of illness? Maybe this will break not only him but also my life ... Stay with him? Now I'm leaning towards it ... but how to live in constant fear? Constantly shaking for yourself and for him? I even visited a psychotherapist with my hypochondria before this situation, they told me that I have a very strong power of self-hypnosis, and I create diseases for myself ... and is it possible to be afraid of HIV all my life and pull it so close to me? I thought that I had spread straws ... I was cautious, did not have casual sex, I asked for tests ... but that's how it turned out.
Sorry, it must have been a mess. I am very lost, inside emptiness and fear. I looked at him on the first day, I was very angry for the deceit, as if a stranger, now two days later I see that he is still the same, maybe nothing has changed? I'm afraid that peace and happiness will never return to us. It's like I'm crumbling into little pieces...
I would be very grateful for your participation.

Olesya Verevkina

Maria1986, yes. Your situation is not easy, but do not despair. In the near future, psychologists will comment on your message.

Maria1986

Thanks, I really hope so. I can’t come to my senses, I can’t tell anyone close to me. Much needed participation.

@, hello! I really sympathize with you, you are going through a difficult moment ... First of all, do tests and find out what is wrong with your status - did your husband's condition affect your health? When you decide on this, then you will already be a little easier. because the unknown is the most frightening thing. Do not delay with this question - after all, the husband is already being treated by someone, so it will not be difficult for you to find a doctor, right? Knowing the real state of affairs, you can already consciously choose whether to stay with him or better to build your life in some other way. Do you agree?

Maria1986

Thanks, Irina. I passed the tests, the result will be at the end of next week. If you do not be an alarmist, then the chance is scanty. But I have already been terribly unlucky, sort of doing everything possible to avoid health problems, but in the end getting what I got, I hope my lottery with a chance of 1 in 1,000,000 is over.
I’m already starting to blame myself that somehow, with my paranoid fears, I “pulled” this man and this situation to me ... although this is destructive, and I myself never believed in it.
In this perspective, I did not think that the results of my analysis would affect my vision of the situation and my decision. Having received a negative analysis, live with your loved one in fear of getting sick? I dreamed of a long life together, grow old together, wanted children (although this is possible, but already much more difficult) To worry about him all the time? Or quit ... but how to live without it? And how is he without me? Maybe I have a chance to meet another person and live a normal life?...or maybe not...get old with cats, alone, without a loved one, but healthy...
Is it possible to understand him, to forgive him for his cowardice? he, in his view and the view of modern medicine, did everything he could so as not to infect ... but there was a deception ... although the risk was negligible, besides, such feelings began to arise in me as pity for him, although I should think first of all about myself .. I'm very worried, I began to delve into the analyzes ... I'm trying to understand the situation. He says that he will live and will live for a long time, modern research also translates HIV into the category of chronic diseases that people live with. But at the moment I have lost hope for peace, for happiness, for dreams of the future. Everything is mixed up...
Sorry for the confusion. But how to prioritize, how to understand yourself? What's more important? Health, happiness, love, peace. For me, it’s all together, I lived like that until the day. But this is no longer possible in our family ...
If someone had asked me 3 years ago if I would have parted with a person, knowing that he was infected with a virus that could kill and be transmitted to me, I would have answered unequivocally Yes ... but in life everything turned out to be much more complicated.

You won't be able to prioritize things like health. happiness, love and peace. They are equally important.
On the one hand, your husband did an act. who undermined your confidence in him. But on the other hand, the disease has now united you (although perhaps the results of your tests will still show a negative result). If you still love and are afraid of losing your husband, then it should be important for you to understand that you have now experienced such a big common problem. - such news that turned life upside down. And you both need to look for a way out of the problem together. You now understand each other's problems better than other people now.
You can meet a healthy or any other man at any time in your life, and. if feelings flare up between you, then you can change your life at any moment. Don't worry, you won't miss any of this if you don't start looking right now.
If now there is no one like that on the horizon, but you have a pressing problem, then it makes sense to fight the disease with your husband and establish life in new conditions. Of course, if you still love him and want to see him around.