Photo credits: Yamini Oseguera-Bhatnagar

 

On August 20th, 2015, HIVE hosted a Send Off Salute to Poppy Morgan and her family before they moved to Chicago. Poppy is a pioneer, boldly sharing her story of searching for a way to have a baby with her husband, who is living with HIV. After 10 years, they now have a beautiful baby girl – both mom and baby remain HIV-free. In the process, Poppy became the voice of women seeking safer conception options including PrEP, helping pave the way for serodifferent couples in California and beyond.

We had many experts from many different organizations: Laurel Fertility Care, Mission Neighborhood Health Center, Family Service Network, UCSF 360, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, CRUSH, Bridge HIV, Rita de Cascia, and POWER Health. Kristi Dixon of AHF very generously provided the food.

 

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Chris Harris of the Family Service Network and her Community Advisory Board volunteers womaned the sign in table:

 

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I did a brief introduction to the event, and then Shannon Weber took over to tell us about the wonderful things Poppy has done. Then Poppy told us some more of her story and answered questions. Her husband, Ted, and daughter, Macey, played with a ball and a toddler shopping cart. Ted gave a short speech about how amazing Poppy is before whisking Macey off to home and bed.

 

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Shannon presented Poppy with a “You Rock” award and we all wrote Love Notes for her to take with her to Chicago.

 

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The event planners, Kristi Dixon, myself, and Yamini Oseguera-Bhatnagar:

 

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Caroline Watson is the Social Justice and Communications Coordinator at HIVE. She is in a serodifferent marriage and has an HIV negative daughter. She is also the founder of #WeAreAllWomen.