Amanda Mammadova, a personal trainer from Buckinghamshire, even went so far as to say that if her baby had HIV it ‘wouldn’t be the end of the world’ and that the child would be lucky to be born into a loving home.
‘I want a child. Why should I deprive myself?’ says Amanda, 34.
22,000 PATIENTS RECALLED AFTER HIV INFECTION SCARE AT UK DENTIST
Mammadova argues that babies born with HIV now have the same life expectancy as healthy ones, so long as they have access to anti-retroviral treatment from the get-go.
It is for this reason that she went ahead with her plan to have a family, despite her health worries.
‘I want a child. Why should I deprive myself?’
‘There are lots of children out there who are living very successful, normal lives with HIV,’ says Amanda.
The 34-year-old, who already had a 21-month-old child with husband Ali, slammed the stigma still attached to the virus, saying that people still fail to understand the realities of the illness - which is controllable by medication.
Amanda adds that a lot of individuals see HIV as self-inflicted illness, or something only caught by ‘slags.’
It was in January 2010 that a routine sexual health check-up revealed the terrifying truth - Amanda was HIV positive.
But the mother of one explains that she doesn’t feel she has been reckless, having caught the virus from a former partner in her twenties.
It was in January 2010 that a routine sexual health check-up revealed the terrifying truth - Amanda was HIV positive.
MOTHER SHARES POWERFUL ESSAY ON HAVING A CHILD WITH HIV
The married mother said she considered killing herself when she was diagnosed, but soon came to understand her illness better.
Amazingly, her husband Ali chose to have unprotected sex with his wife in order to conceive their two children, despite knowing he could contract HIV.
Do you think it's fair for people with HIV to have children?