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I adopted my daughter from South Africa. She was born with HIV. Both of her parents had it and she was orphaned before she was 1 year old. A Pastor took her into his home for orphaned children. He was connected with my church in the states; his home was named after our church because we raised the funds to build it (when he first began he was taking the infants into his own home). She became my sponsor daughter, and after many years of bureaucracy and red tape, I was allowed to adopt her even though I was single (the Pastor fought hard for me because she has HIV and would likely never be adopted, and I had met her 3 times on missionary trips with my church to his home).
Anyway, I often wonder if anyone else has ever adopted a child with HIV, whether knowing before-hand, or finding out later. DD came home when she was 4, and is now 10. She is still pretty healthy, although has her ups and downs. I know she will not live forever, and that breaks my heart. But I knew that going in. I love her deeply and treat her just as I do any other child without HIV. I don't do the whole "universal precautions" crap. Everyone in our house is taught to never touch another person's blood, toothbrush, razor, etc. End of story. I treat her "boo boos" un-gloved. If I have an open cut or wound on my hands., I cover it with waterproof band-aids so that if I need to treat a boo boo I don't need to be concerned. Her Dr. supports me in this, pointing out that it's important that she feels as normal as possible. As long as she knows that no one else can touch her blood (which she does, very much), it's fine. I just want her to be a kid and lead as normal of a life as possible, for as long as that is.
I'm not really sure what the point of this post was. I really just wanted to see if there was anyone else out there in the same boat, and how you handle things. I've started counseling recently to hopefully "prepare" myself for the inevitable, at the suggestion of DD's Dr. He says she has 10 to even 20 years, but that the sooner I prepare myself, the better, because of opportunistic infections that can come at any time and throw that 10-20 years out the window.
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Lily :loveyou: Foster Mom to girls getting out of Sex Trafficking
AD A (10) :southafrica: :flower:
Current Placements:
H (17) :drive: and her littles K (3) :thankyou: and J (1) :firefighter: 4/14-Present
P (15) :hippie: and her little G (4mos) :paci: 12/14-Present
S (14) :banana: 1/15-Present
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