YOURSPACE

My Life

I am 17 years old. I have a baby who is three months old.

I got HIV/AIDS from my mother. She had the virus because her step-father raped her. He raped her and my aunts and had sexual relations with my grandmother, she was his wife. They all contracted HIV/AIDS. My mother managed to leave the house and got together quickly with my father, at the age of 13, almost 14. Well, she transmitted the virus to my father, although she did not know this. So they had me and she breast-fed me like all mothers do. Later she had my sister. They diagnosed me a few months later. My mother took me to hospital once but never again because she was lazy about going to hospitals.

My sister luckily is 14 and is in good health, like me, although the difference is that she does not experience the life situation that I do, she does not have the virus. But my third sister was born and died 2 months later because my mother was practically at the AIDS stage.

My mother died at 19 when I was 3 and my father at 33 when I was 12. So I remained with my grandmother.

My father is a more significant figure for me because I lived more time with my father, he started out from scratch selling fruit and then he drove a taxi.

Later, when my mother and father died, I was taken in by my grandmother. At the beginning my grandmother treated us well and all that, but when I was more grown up, and 10 years old, my step-grandfather raped me and raped my sister. We would tell my grandmother about it, but she would not listen. So my adolescence and childhood were not normal. Later, as I had no relatives, they put me into a children’s home. There were countless clever girls who came from the streets, and I knew nothing about that. I met my baby’s father there, but we did not have a relationship and did not become engaged. We were placed in another home, and because we did not take care, I became pregnant. When I realised this, I was about 4 months gone, because if I had realised it before, I would have aborted.

As if it were a miracle, God allowed me to realise this 4 months into the pregnancy, when my baby had already developed. I am sentimental, so if I say that my baby has developed and all that, well, there is nothing I can do. So I had her but now I adore her, she is my reason for living and I do not regret it, in spite of all the sacrifices I have made for her.
When I was pregnant, they gave me AZT. I had been taking medicines since I was 3 years old and my body was full of antibodies. During the pregnancy at the hospital I got very good care from the nurses. I would support other girls who were told that they had acquired the HIV/AIDS virus and were frightened and cried when they were told that they were pregnant. They told me that mine was undetectable and that I could have a normal delivery, but I did not dare to, because in my heart I felt that there was a risk, due to the blood thing. So I risked having a Caesarean section. I am not breastfeeding. My baby is now 3 months old and has not even had a cold, nothing, unlike other babies. Well, when I had the Caesarean section I was given AZT and took all manner of precautions, and I had the “triples” during my pregnancy. It is not difficult to follow the regime during pregnancy because you take the medicines at the same time that you took them before.

Jorge, my father’s baby, cannot help me now because he is also in an institution and he is also under-aged. He was also born with the virus. We met at the hospitals and got together at the home. Now he will wait until he comes of age to leave the home, like me.
We have many aims in our life, and particularly to take care of our child. Well, what can I say? Circumstances in life did not allow me to conclude the fifth year of my studies, but I intend to do so.

There is one thing that they have to change. Many people suffering from HIV/AIDS now know how it is transmitted and how to avoid this, but there is one thing that they have to change and which is the word “Oh, I caught it, oh, I am ill”. Because if I say that I am ill, many people who are not in my position will point a finger at me and say “she is ill, she has contracted the virus from someone”. And this is not so: it is just that we have different circumstances. Because I feel the same as all the other adolescent girls.
I am in an institution; well, I live there. I am there now in the section housing unmarried women with children. Thank God when they found out at the other home that I had the baby, I thought “Oh, God, what am I going to do, I don’t have money even to buy her a sheet to cover her”. So I started at the bottom, being humble. A lady gave me some clothes she had which were not in good condition. A nun told me “No, throw that away, this is your first baby”. But I took it because I did the “novenas”, which consist of one text from the Bible for each month of your pregnancy. There it says that you must receive any thing they give you humbly and that the Lord will multiply it for you. I believe that this is true, because now my baby does not lack anything. She has not been ill.

Now there are three mothers at the home and only one of them knows about my circumstances.

I am training at a foundation called Aids for AIDS, which helps people with AIDS. We are receiving intensive training about the usefulness of triple therapy, the nature of the virus in our bodies, which therapy is for which enzyme and many other things, because I see that in many countries they just give an overview of HIV/AIDS and talk about things that are not significant. They also teach us how to do the HIV test, called the “Elisa”, to ascertain whether I have a foreign virus in my body. Then the “Western Blot” test is carried out to find out whether the virus is indeed the HIV/AIDS one, and they determine the viral load in order to see how you are and ascertain your defences.

My family has told me that I will be this, that I will be that, that I will die. I get no support from my family. And I have quite a few relatives on my father’s side. Most of my mother’s relatives have died. I have to show them that I can be even better than them. I won't consume alcohol or drugs or become a prostitute because my family does not love me; no, that is not the case.

Do you know about many cases of HIV/AIDS transmission due to sexual abuse?

Okay. I have a friend who had her first relationship, she was a virgin and her boyfriend deceived her and gave her the HIV/AIDS in their first contact. She is in total shock, because that was her first relationship. So she and her family went to look for him to put him in prison, but he fled and nothing more was heard of him. There is too much abuse too, not only with children who live with HIV/AIDS or adolescents. There is too much of it. I think that it is their parents who should take care of them. If my mother and my father had had the opportunity that I have now of taking medicine, I would not have been put in any home or hospital. Perhaps I would not have had a daughter. But in any event I don’t regret this.

My daughter is well and looking beautiful. They test babies just after they are born. Her results turned out positive and I was afraid. But they say that this is not so, and why? Because the baby still has my antibodies. Three months after birth they do a test and they have already carried it out but have not informed me of the results. Six months after the birth another test is carried out and another one eighteen months after it. If the results are negative, then they discharge my baby as a healthy child.

I have never tried to kill myself. There are youngsters who try to do so, who leave school, they don’t want to leave home, they want to go elsewhere. Well, I want to give a message to all the children who are listening and tell them to take their medicines regularly, to take precautions, to take care of the other person, not to get lost in another world. I found out when I was about 12 or 13. As I did not know about it, I gave it no importance. I was already taking my medicine. Then I grew and grew and it was as if I did not mind tormenting myself, suffering because I have this or that. It is different for someone who is born with this than for someone who is told about it. It is harsh to be told about it when one has grown up. But not for someone who is born with it, you know that you will grow up with it and that is not hard. But I don’t tell anyone, because even though we struggle against discrimination, it will always be around. I was at school and heard the remarks that were being made.

At school I have told nobody, only my best friend, who really is my best friend because she treats me that same as the other friends. I cried when I told her, but it was not that I was thinking “Oh, how terrible that I have it”, but rather because she was crying for me.

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