This Married Woman Got HIV While Trying To Get Pregnant
When did you get married?
We got married in 2004
Did you do HIV tests before you got married?
Yes, we did. It was a compulsory test before getting married. We were both HIV negative. When did you realise you had the virus? It was in 2007. I got pregnant and was asked to do some random tests. That was how I found out I was HIV positive.
Do you know how you contracted the virus?
Sometimes, it's difficult to tell because there are so many ways through which one can get the virus but you can trace it if you vividly remember the activities you engaged in for some months and years.
Can you explain what you mean by activities one engages in?
In my case, my husband married me a virgin and like I told you earlier, I was HIV negative and so was he when we got married. Certain things happened to me that exposed me to unhealthy practices and I believe strongly that that was how I got HIV.
Unhealthy practices?
I could not conceive when I got married. My husband was not worried because it was a young marriage, but his family members were not happy with me. They said all sorts of nasty things to me and tried to get my husband to send me out of the house. It created tension in my home. I went to different churches and herbalists within and outside Lagos. In the herbalist's home, I was given incisions with a razor blade. I received the incisions on two different occasions. Then in 2007, my mother-in-law arranged a new wife for my husband behind my back.
Did he tell you about the new wife?
No. In fact, I didn't know until much later. It was one of my friends in the village that told me what my mother-in-law had been up to. My husband just told me that he was going to our village to see his mum. I did not suspect anything. It was on that trip they introduced the new wife to him. He rejected the wife and came back to Lagos but he did not tell me anything. One day, one of my friends called me and asked me if I knew what my husband came to the village for. She narrated the scheme to me and I confronted my husband. He said he didn't tell me because it would hurt me. He reasoned that since he didn't take the wife, I would be happy not knowing what transpired in the village. It was that same year my in-laws wanted to get another wife for my husband that I got pregnant. That is why I counsel women that patience is everything. I got pregnant when God was ready to give me a child. It wasn't the herbalist or white garment churches that made it possible. They gave me some very horrible concoctions to drink in those churches after praying on them. They took me to rivers to have my bath. When I saw that all those things were not working, I stopped. Several months after, I just discovered I was pregnant. In fact, I remember vividly that at the herbalist's place, I didn't give them the blade that was used for the incisions.
