I've been hearing a faint voice in my head for about a week now. I finally figured out what it was.....
When I started the journey of marriage, I had no way of knowing my primal need to have children would engulf me the way that it did. I was surprised by the things my body and mind were telling me..shouting to me to have a baby. At one point it got so bad, I practically hallucinated a young boy in my arms, who threw his arms around my neck and kissed me with his sticky lollipop lips. And feeling as if a voice, a child, was calling to me from deep in the center of the earth. I felt like if I couldn't have a child, I would literally die.
Eventually these feelings led me to search out any possible ways my HIV+ husband and I could bring a child into our home. Adoption, in-vitro fertilization, insemination, sperm donor....I looked into everything.
It was an 8 year journey of considering our options, but we finally decided on having scheduled unprotected sex to conceive. Because it is a controversial method, we have worked closely with an amazing team of doctors, and have told only a handful of people of our plans.
We decided that I would take pre-and post- exposure treatment and hope for the best. (I should tell you that my husband is a very healthy man with 10 years of an undetectable viral load)
We anticipated having arousing, passionate, condom-less sex. When we were finally ready to attempt it...we both got nervous. It was the worst two days of sex we ever had. It felt like I was undergoing a medical procedure. Placing pillows under my hips for half an hour...not very sexy.
So, right now, its only been 6 days since "the attempt" and I am driving myself crazy wondering if the very breath I take is a sign that I'm pregnant. And I've been feeling a voice calling to me. Its very faint. Its not the voice of a child. Its the voice of his HIV...
I am trying to drown it out with activities and busy work, I just can't think about the possibility that I may have contracted HIV during this process. But its constantly there...the voice. Like a ghost, or a phantom. If I stop my busy-ness for too long, I fear the voice will catch up with me and possess me.
So, I'm just going to stay busy for a while.
