Thank you for your question.<\/p>\n
Telling someone you love about your status is never an easy thing to do. It is also something that many people only want to do when they really feel that their partner is someone very special who will love them no matter what. It is understandable that your partner finds it hard to deal with sometimes. She needs time to adjust and get used to the idea as well. Counselling is a good idea. The Terrance Higgins Trust<\/a> offers a counselling service and which can provide support for you both.<\/p>\n As far as having children is concerned, Brighton and Birmingham hospitals have been running a pilot project for sero-discordant couples (male positive and female negative) wanting to conceive naturally. The results of this project were presented at a conference and can be seen here<\/a>. There is a video of the presentation here<\/a> (you will need to skip to the third presentation to watch the relevant one). You should ask your HIV doctor if they are able to either offer the same services or refer you both to these hospitals for the natural conception clinic.<\/p>\n The basic concept is that both partners are counselled separately and together. They are both tested to see if they are fertile. The male must have had an undetectable viral load for more than 6 months. Both partners should have no other STIs. The woman takes ARVs prior to unprotected sex to prevent infection and only has unprotected sex when she is at her most fertile. You should talk to your HIV doctor about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hi,<\/p>\n I’m a mid-thirties male, four years diagnosed, three years treated (initially with Atripla, which then caused a rash so they moved me briefly to Kaletra and Truvada, before I insisted on a move back to Atripla). CD4 stable in the 450-550 range, VL less than 50 since three months after treatment started, health and well-being generally good.<\/p>\n For two and a half years, I have been increasingly involved with a girl who I love very much. Now, please don’t moralise to me on this next bit — I hadn’t told her of my status until last month, because the longer I left it, the harder it got to tell her. Suffice to say, she knows now, we’re still together, and although sometimes she understandably has difficult days. Also, she has been tested, she is negative.<\/p>\n So, I guess I’m writing for two reasons — firstly, she has previously mentioned wanting children, but we have since talked and agreed we’re not going to go down the sperm-washing route. I’ve read about the Swiss HIV Cohort Study — does anyone in this forum have any experience of serodiscordant pregnancy? Advice\/observations\/guidance very much appreciated.<\/p>\n Secondly, I’ve never had counselling. Previously, I railed against it — insisted I could get by on my own, insisted that I could cope. Now I find myself in a situation where the woman I love is obviously finding it difficult sometimes (although she’s a very stubborn, strong and independent woman), and I can’t help but think that counselling might be a good idea — for both of us. Can anyone suggestion how I go about bringing the subject up? Are there any specific groups that anyone can recommend (ideally in the Berkshire\/Oxfordshire\/Buckinghamshire area) for serodiscordant couples?<\/p>\n Thanks in advance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,15,19,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-topics","category-disclosure","category-pregnancy","category-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/i-base.info\/qa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}