Who's Positive

Who's Positive, a nationally known organization which humanizes HIV through firsthand accounts of people living with or affected by HIV/AIDS asks for you to answer this question:

Given the following Scenario please answer the following question - Within the packaging of the test, information would be provided which would offer a 24 hour professional counseling hot line, linkage to care through website, FDA approved, reasonably priced.

Question: If approved by the FDA - Would you support a mouth swab, rapid, over the counter HIV test which could be purchased at a retail store?

Please go to: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/whospositive

Two important things we ask you keep into consideration:

As to not influence others - Please do not share your thoughts in this forum. You'll be given an opportunity to do so within the survey.

Please forward this email/link on through your networks with the above disclaimer.

Thank you,

Who's Positive
http://www.whospositive.org

My Journey to becoming a positive mother.

Let's see as far back as I can remember I wanted to be a mom. I had lost a child before I ever even knew I was positive which was so terribly hard on me. When I found out I was positive I gave up on that dream because I was scared of passing this on to my child. I asked my first ID doctor about tying my tubes and he flat out told me that he wouldn’t recommend it nor would any doctor do it without his recommendation. The reason for this was because I had no kids and I was under 25, I had just turned 24 at the time. When I and my ex-husband split I figured I would stay single and not have to worry about pregnancy again. I even told family members that I had given up and would just concentrate on being an aunt which I love to do anyway. I have always been very close to my oldest brothers children because his two oldest are 9 and 10 years younger than me so we grew up together.

Well then I met my now other half and we became friends. I honestly wasn’t looking to date him when I first met him in chat I was just having fun goofing around talking to people. I had been very up front with him about my status and with others I talked to in the chat room as well. Well then he and I got to talking not just in the chat room but also on the phone. Soon we were telling people we were an item and made arrangements for him to come visit me a few times over the next month. Well on one of those visits we decided to sleep together, and of course since I didn’t want to infect him we used protection. Well the protection apparently failed and I got pregnant with our daughter, and I knew that my personal values wouldn’t allow me to do anything else but to have her.

I was so stressed and worried about passing HIV to her through my whole pregnancy. Since I lost a child previously as well as being positive I was considered a high risk pregnancy. I did everything the doctors told me to do and took the meds religiously. I almost lost her several times due to stress, but like I tell everyone she was my little fighter and was determined to be born. I had to get a C-section because my doctor preferred not to take a chance on vaginal delivery. For the first six weeks of her life she had to take a liquid version of what I took when pregnant, and she had to be get tested every 3 months. When she turned 18 months she got her first negative test and at 2 years she got her second so she was officially HIV negative.
Now she’s 7 and is my greatest joy in life. Due to other health issues I wound up getting a hysterectomy so she will be my only child. She does have siblings though from her dad an older sister and brother. I feel very lucky in how things turned out with her.

Headline News was talking about the CDC report which reported that young people are waiting to have sex - to watch the video go to http://www.facebook.com/thomas.m.donohue

How can this country let people on waiting lists.

Let me say that again... people needing life saving HIV medications wich in most cases cost thousands of dollars a month are on a waiting list - Yet we can snap and respond nationally and send AID to other countries? Why don't we concentrate on our own country and people for a few minutes.

I posted a video of my thoughts on the ADAP crisis - it can be seen at http://www.facebook.com/thomas.m.donohue

ADAPs with Waiting Lists (6,972 individuals in 11 states*, as of March 3, 2011)
Arkansas: 42 individuals
Florida: 3,503 individuals
Georgia: 1,074 individuals
Idaho: 7 individuals
Louisiana: 732 individuals**
Montana: 20 individuals
North Carolina: 133 individuals
Ohio: 449 individuals
South Carolina: 507 individuals
Virginia: 502 individuals
Wyoming: 3 individuals