By all accounts, Terri Smith and Brad Roback's Chicago-area home looks normal enough; a barking dog, an 18-month-old toddler (named Sachi), family portraits and organized chaos. But closer inspection reveals a key difference between this and many other households  a cluster of syringes and bottles on the kitchen counter.

Sachi, who is just under two years old, is HIV positive. She contracted the virus from her birth mother, a sex worker in India.

Writer Leslie Goldman wrote about Sachi's adoptive family -- and the plight of the many other HIV+ children who are still waiting for families of their own -- in a Dec. 1 Huffington Post article:

Families like Brad, Terri, and Sachi are helping to bring about that much-needed transformation. They're part of a small but growing group of would-be parents looking to bring a child into their homes and lives. Coupled with the increasing manageability of HIV in areas with access to medical care, children like Sachi are finding homes ... and thriving.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing them for a story in Parenting magazine, "An HIV Adoption Story" (December 2009 issue.) While no hard numbers exist for HIV adoption, the field is growing by "leaps and bounds," Erin Henderson, the coordinator for HIV-positive kids at Adoption Advocates International in Port Angeles, WA, told me.

In 2005, AAI helped two HIV-positive Ethiopian children come to the U.S.; in October 2009, the agency had 45 such adoptions in process or completed.

Labels: international, HIV

Posted By: Aspen/CRC