Feeding a baby while living with HIV

My point of view for HIV was like, ‘I’m going to die’ and I think, you know, came into my mind that thing because I haven’t studied a lot about this disease and all those things so then when I came over here and when they spoke to me the doctors, you know, when they spoke to me regarding this thing they have explained everything regarding this HIV thing that with the medication it’s just a normal thing, you know, like as if you are a diabetic patient.

It’s just taking the medicine, so they have explained me and all and with the on my second pregnancy also, I had a fear I don’t want my child to get infected with this thing. I had a fear, I had really a bad fear of this thing. I was, I have booked an appointment to abort my child also.

So, I told the HIV team, you know, regarding my fear and everything, why I wanted to abort it. I told them everything regarding that thing and they explained to me, you know, “It’s completely normal and you don’t have to face anything. You’re taking medication and it won’t, probably like 99 per cent it won’t affect your child. Only 1 per cent of the children you know, they get affected with this thing.” But, you know, my fear was like it I don’t want that thing to haunt me, you know, always in my mind. So that’s the thing why I was going to abort my child, but then they have explained me, you know, I just went with the flow, you know.

I think the fact that it happened on the same day like, it was like I believe in God like I am a Muslim woman. I have a strong faith in God. So, the fact that He hit me with bad news and then somehow, okay here’s something for you to hold onto or something to live for, kind of thing or like, you know, be positive for. I feel like yeah, my pregnancy is a positive thing and not like oh I’m burdened with a pregnancy now. Look now I’m happy again. I mean I’m still pregnant.

So, when I first got married, which was in 2017, I hadn’t really thought about children because I wasn’t on treatment this was not possible, well it would endanger the child so that was not an option for me. So, I waited like to see what to do. I had not started the treatment until 2019. So being a mother was kind of not an option for me. But once I started the treatment then I told the doctors that I had, I wanna get pregnant as soon as I can. That that was my goal.

I had steroid injections and the ones that I was on they switched because I couldn’t take if I was taking steroids and I think they did it slightly without me kind of noticing, they were like, “Oh we changed your medication to generic.” That’s I remember them doing that. I don’t remember them changing the medications and then the one that I was on wasn’t, hadn’t been no research had been done in pregnancy. So, they had to change them.

I would have been in my 30’s so I, starting a family would have been on my mind so I asked to be transferred to a female HIV doctor, so yeah, I think definitely a conversation about babies happened. Yeah, all the correspondence from them was really positive and really supportive and, oh, what I really liked about them as well was if I asked a question, one that was really scientific or they really would try and share the science with me and not just kind of dumb it down, I quite liked that. So yeah, so I’d ask a simple question like, “Am I gonna be able to have a HIV free baby?”

I’d mentioned it to my husband and he said that it was a good idea was to have a private lactation consultant, so I think when you give birth, you have access to like a feeding team. But again, that’s sort of like you’d go to like sort of health visiting clinic and they would support you. But I think we’re very fortunate. Obviously, we can afford to have like additional support. So, paying someone privately that can come on day two to make sure that I’m doing it right and we don’t have to rely on having to book an appointment and perhaps that appointment being like in a week’s time. Because I know that the window of it going wrong or like if I do get an infection there’s a smaller window that we can correct it.

This is something that I’m worried about in within my household because I think, I live with my mother. I think outside of my household, I should be fine. Just living with my mother, I know she’s breastfed, you know. Just living with her, it’s going to be a bit annoying. I just want to get out and kind of move on because she, I think she will try to, like she will actually tell me, “Just try, just try.” Or like I knows there’s excuses again because I think it’s more like nipples being cracked or something, I dunno you know, the way the liquid comes out but there are reasons I can tell people, but my mother will kind of, if she sees me especially I’ll be living with her 24/7 I know she’s going to be looking after, helping me look after my child, she might be like, “Oh just try.” Or like, “I’m here, don’t worry, just try.” She will try and support me and it’ll be a sweet thing for her to try but I will get that pressure from just my mother I think. I think no one else. My mother-in-law, she might be coming to this country like to see the baby so that’s going to be another pressure. Yeah, my mother-in-law is really old school but yeah, so there will be pressure from my mother and my mother-in-law but no one else.