A true love story: homosexual couple adopts girl with HIV

This happened in 2012 and as if it wasn't enough for this gay couple to go down in history in Maradona and Gardel's country, the story of the adoption of their daughter Olivia was and will be an event that goes beyond the limits of statistics stories about the claim of the rights of the LGBTI community in the world, which goes beyond the struggle for the need to share the planet with our descendants.

Ariel and Damián have been a couple for more than 15 years, but only until 2012, they were able to legally formalize their marriage. They had proposed as part of their life project, to be adoptive parents and thus vindicate their rights as legally configured marriage.

Before the civil marriage between these two Rosario, they had already made the decision to be parents, so, because of the lack of legal rights, they went to the method of direct adoption, a dark world where people trade the lives of the babies, as with the desperate anxieties of parents who aim to have a baby given for adoption in their arms.

This dark business is plagued by unscrupulous people who see in a nascent life and the desperate desires of future parents, the perfect opportunity to cruelly capitalize on the situation. This was the case of Ariel, who suffered a deep disappointment when he was scammed by a woman who served as a mediator between the mother who wanted to get rid of her baby and the adoptive partner, as she requested a significant amount of resources from Ariel and Damian for expenses of the pregnant mother and fled with the money without a trace.

This almost ends the love of this couple of men but finally, they were strong enough and overcame disappointment and continued on. In 2012, when legally married, they decided to apply to the Single Registry of Aspiring Applicants for Foster Purposes, RUAGA.

They inquired if being a homosexual couple allow them to adopt or if they would be disqualified from the start. When they found a favorable response to their intentions, they continued with the process not before having set a time limit to achieve their mission. The term was two years and then they would give up their intention because it was not healthy to prolong the anguish and uncertainty of knowing if one day they were going to be parents or not.

Also read: Massacre of indigenous people in Cauca Colombia

Initially, when filling out the RUAGA form, they noted that they wanted to adopt a child under 5, but nothing happened. For a long year, the telephone did not ring to give them hopes of adoption, so they decided to broaden the search spectrum and noted that they accepted children under 14 years old and even with brothers on board.

It was in 2014 when, as part of a pre-selection process to stay with a 14-year-old girl, a judge from Rosario called them on the phone and told them that there was a 28-day-old girl that required adoptive parents and that there was the possibility that they were the ones, if they were interested in it.

Their hearts stirred and from the deepest bowels emanated the purest feeling that vibrates in the look and the smile, their answer without hesitation was a resounding yes.

It didn't matter that the Rosario judge warned them that this little girl was an HIV carrier because of the absence of medical controls from her parents, that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was the heart of those two lovers who, without knowing the baby, had already linked with her for life through a connection of the soul.

Ariel and her husband ran to court to find out sad news, the baby had been rejected by 10 previous couples because of the pathology she suffered, heterosexual couples, couples of which the churches consider "correct" and not "unnatural", as they have described homosexual marriages.

But that sad news that still causes some stinging was the joy of Ariel and Damian. The 10 couples who rejected the girl, had opened the possibility that those who also, because of prejudice and ignorance, had sometimes been rejected by an orthodox and macho society, could fulfill their dream of being parents.

Olivia was the name they chose for their little girl, for the center of their lives, for that little woman who stole their breath from the first happy encounter with eyes wide open and without a tear.

That look of love, that pleading and harmonious look stole forever the heart of these two men in love with life and fatherhood. Between the two they loaded that first day the barely 1,200 grams that the owner of their loves weighed.

Read also: First female mayor of Bogota makes the corrupt tremble

But they still had to go a long way and 'cross several rivers' to formalize adoption. The first would be the six months of bonding, time in which the parents live with the baby and create and reaffirm ties that from then on will be unbreakable for the rest of their lives. During that time, the happy applicants for the adoption of Olivia had to submit her to treatments with antiretrovirals with AZT and she, with stoicism and an enviable temper, endured the injections without crying.

It was four months of living among this trio of lovers until in February 2015 they received an unexpected call from a doctor in Córdoba, Argentina, who told them that one of his patients had told him: “I want them to be the parents of my baby”.

In a matter of five months, they went from being desperate to adopt a baby to having the possibility of adopting two. Heaven responded to their prayers and transformed his anguish and sadness into joys for the family now formed by Ariel, Damian, Olivia and, now Victoria would arrive.

While the news was already supremely positive and Victoria would grow up next to her sister Olivia, taking care of her older sister who along with her parents required for her condition, there was still another miracle from heaven.

At the end of the year and a half of life of the lucky Olivia, the doctors, in the constant analyzes of which the baby was subjected, as a result of the HIV she was carrying, noticed an anomaly that caught her attention and forced them to repeat tests. After the confirmation, they dared to socialize with the parents the surprising finding. Olivia did not have HIV, she was completely healthy and without traces of the disease.

On October 16, Olivia celebrated her first five years of life with her younger sister and her parents. In February of the year 2020 it will be Victoria who will fulfill the same number of years, day in which they will celebrate one more date in family: one more day of the miracle of life and the mysterious paths so that each person reaches their complete happiness.