When Olivia was born, she was HIV positive. There were 10 couples who wanted to adopt her, but when they learned about her condition, they decided they didn’t want her any more at all.
But that was before Damian and Ariel came along, and they had been waiting three years to get the call to come see a child for adoption. The men are an openly gay couple and the first to be married in Santa Fe, Argentina. And when they went to check on little Olivia, something special happened.
Says Ariel: “As soon as I saw her, I felt that she was part of my life. The connection was immediate. We held her in our arms, gave her the bottle and she looked at us with her eyes open without crying.”
So they took her home with them. And, because she was responding well to her HIV treatment, she started gaining weight. Incredibly, after just a few years, the virus could not be detected any longer in her blood. She no longer had HIV.
Since taking in Olivia, the couple has adopted another little girl, named Victoria. They are both the same age. When word got out about the men adopting Olivia, there were plenty of kind comments on social media and after news stories.
Says one: “God bless these two gents with a big heart. They are adopting an angel. They have 2 now. Both daughters will be showered with so much love.”
Another wrote: “When I was in high school, HIV was considered a death sentence. An incurable disease, its carriers were the lepers of our age. Next year is my 15th-year class reunion and today we have medicines that make it a “manageable condition” and allow carriers to have meaningful lives. If the kid lives to be my age, she may live to see a day where it can be cured.”
And wouldn’t that be something?
