The movement for taking in foreign orphans with the virus is small but growing,
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As one of about 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.
Erin Henderson, left, and husband Joshua, top, share their rural Wyoming home with 11 children, including two from Ethiopia with HIV: Solomon, second from left, and Belane, third from left.
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
Some parents say they were driven by religion or a desire for social change, or that the disease is more manageable than before. Others, like Julie Hehn, give 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 had not been looking for an HIV-positive child.
"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
Margaret Fleming, founder of Chances by Choice, an international group that connects parents with HIV-positive children and adoption agencies, said her organization has overseen adoptions of children from
Fleming, who has three HIV-positive children in her own brood of 12, 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 last 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 11-year-old Tsegenet, 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.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said HIV-positive adoptees pose no public health threat in
"The American people are compassionate people," Leavitt said on a visit to