As one of some 14,000 Ethiopian children born with the virus every year, Solomon's prospects for survival — much less adoption — were grim. But Erin Henderson's heart stirred when she saw him, and she decided, on the spot, to adopt him.
"They told me that they weren't sure he would live through the weekend," Henderson said by e-mail from her home in rural Wyoming, where she lives with her husband and 11 children, two of whom are HIV-positive adoptees from Ethiopia.
Solomon, now an active 2-year-old with chubby cheeks and a shy smile, is part of a small but growing movement: Americans adopting HIV-positive children from abroad.
Figures from U.S.-based Adoption Advocates International, the agency that arranges the majority of HIV-positive adoptions in
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The U.S. Embassy corroborates the trend, although its numbers are slightly different because it counts adoptions according to fiscal year. So far this year, the embassy said, Americans have adopted 25 HIV-positive children from
The motivations are wide-ranging — some parents say they were driven by religion or a desire for social change, or that the disease is more manageable than ever before. Others, like Julie Hehn, gave more personal reasons.
"I was just scrolling through these pictures, and I saw the photo of Tsegenet, and I said, 'Oh my God, that's my daughter,"' said Hehn, a 53-year-old elementary school teacher from
Hehn said she was not looking for an HIV-positive child when she decided to adopt from
"I fell in love with Tsegenet and it just happens she's HIV-positive," said Hehn, who has 27 children, 19 of them adopted from
At a recent goodbye party at an orphanage in
The children — all of whom have HIV or AIDS and are looking for new families — belted out an Ethiopian hymn called "No one is ashamed of you."
Ethiopian adoptions to the
So far, none of the children adopted through Adoption Advocates International in
Margaret Fleming, the founder of Chances By Choice, an international HIV-positive adoption advocacy group that connects parents with HIV-positive children and adoption agencies, said her group also has overseen adoptions of children from
Fleming said her group has helped bring about 52 international HIV-positive adoptions since 2002 from assorted adoption agencies and countries, including
Fleming, who has three HIV-positive children in her own brood of 12 children, said she wanted to make a difference in the world.
"I feel like I'm on the cutting edge of making an impact on this epidemic," Fleming, 72, said by telephone from her office in
Over the past decade, HIV has become a manageable, chronic disease, rather than a death sentence. Some children, like Solomon, require daily medication that can cost between $700 and $1,500 a month, though all parents planning to adopt children with HIV are required to carry health insurance, so costs are usually less.
Others, like Tsegenet Hehn, have been told by doctors that the low levels of the virus in their blood mean they don't need any medication.
"She doesn't get sick any more than my other children," said Hehn, who said another daughter, who has a condition that makes her react violently to wheat and gluten products, requires more care than Tsegenet does.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt said HIV-positive adoptees pose no public health threat in
"The American people are compassionate people," Leavitt told the AP on a visit to the Ethiopian capital,
But parents overwhelmingly say the reward is theirs.
"I have learned so much from Tsegenet," Hehn said. "I have learned to be more patient and kind through Tsegenet."
Like some parents interviewed, Hehn says she insists on being open with everyone about her daughter's condition.
"I'm a teacher. I want to educate everybody I can educate," she said. "And I believe it is the only way we can erase the stigma. I am not going to tell her that there is not one part of her that is not beautiful and wonderful and pure."