June 18, 2014 - BETA (San Francisco AIDS Foundation).
by Heather Boerner
In 2000, Poppy Hillsborough* entered an office at San Francisco General Hospital with babies on her mind. Her boyfriend, Ted Morgan,* has HIV, and she wanted to know if she could have children with him without adopting or using expensive reproductive technology. If she thought of HIV medications at all, it was because they were keeping Morgan healthy. As far as Hillsborough was concerned, babies and meds were two different issues.
Until they weren't.
It took a decade and lots of false starts, but in 2010, Hillsborough and Morgan, now married, started trying for a baby. Once a month when Hillsborough was ovulating, the couple would leave the condoms aside and have sex once. They did it off and on for months, all with the hope, Hillsborough said, that she could have a baby with the sandy blond hair and lanky build of her husband. What made their experiment possible was a medication, Truvada, that Hillsborough took daily and that promised to reduce her risk of contracting HIV. Continue reading…
*Not their real names.
