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Haters call me nasty for having kids even after I found out that I had herpes
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At the time that I contracted it, I was working in the adult content industry
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People said a lot of really, really mean things. There was a lot of victim blaming
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People were saying that I am endangering my children by, you know, deciding to have more kids
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Somebody else said just nasty. Another person said CPS needs to be called immediately
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What would you say to people who didn't call you selfish for having kids after your diagnosis
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I have two kids, Preston and Priya. Preston is four and Priya is almost one and a half
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Right now I'm just making some breakfast for them. Oh, what are you making
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I'm making you some sausage and pancakes. Yeah, I always wanted to be a mom
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I love watching them like learn and experience things for the first time
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They're just so curious. I was diagnosed with herpes about three years ago
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HSV2, so the genital. I get outbreaks, sores down below. Very painful, painful sores
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What kind of work were you doing around this time? I was working in the adult content industry and also working online as an influencer
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content creator. And a lot of people assumed that it was due to my work in the adult industry that led
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to my diagnosis, which is completely false. I do know who gave me herpes. I really didn't know anything about herpes before I was diagnosed
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My doctor actually really didn't give me any advice on how to deal with it or anything
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She just prescribed a medication and told me my diagnosis. I'm about to work out. It's hard when you have kids and they like to distract you
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It's really hard to find time for yourself, but in order to take care of everybody else
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who also have to take care of you. So I've noticed since I started working out
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like I have a lot more energy and I just feel more positive
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and productive throughout the day. When you're a mom, it feels like you never finished
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with everything you have to do. Like there's always something that you could be doing
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As a mom having herpes really doesn affect my day life It doesn affect what I able to provide for my kids or how much I love them or the way that I love them
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I think, if anything, it makes me a better mom because I'll be able to teach them more so how to protect themselves and things to watch out for
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The doctors really didn't give me any more information about whether I would be able to have kids safely or not when I found out my diagnosis
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so I did some research on my own like right away because one of my biggest fears was that I
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wouldn't be able to have more kids. I decided to have Priya with her father. Not too long into our
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relationship I knew I wanted to have more kids. I was worried because I didn't want you know
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the chance of me to have an outbreak when it was time for me to have her. I was scared that
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I could pass that on to her but I did everything that I could to protect her from that and take
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care of my body so that I could take care of her. I believe that if I was experiencing an outbreak
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at the time that I had her, I believe that it can be not only passed to the baby, but it can cause
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I believe, blindness and other health issues in infants. So it is pretty severe if you aren't
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taking care of yourself or you're unaware that you have it, or you know, you're not monitoring
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if there's an outbreak. So it is something that you do have to take some consideration into
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pregnancy on it, but it's not going to stop you from having that experience. I stayed on my
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medication for my entire pregnancy to make sure I wasn't having any outbreaks. I knew that if I was
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having an outbreak, I would just have that C-section. I felt so relieved when I had her and she was
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healthy and there was no issues or complications. So this is the day before she was born. I was set
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to be induced the next day and I just wanted some like last minute maternity photos of myself
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I was so excited. I couldn't wait to see what she looked like and just to hold her
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and just hope that everything went well. I was really nervous and she gave me a really big belly
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But I had a healthy pregnancy. As you can see, she's very, very healthy
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What would you say to people who would call you selfish for having kids after your diagnosis
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I don think that it selfish of me to still choose to have kids even though I have herpes because I still have so much love to give And as long as I take care of my body it not really a risk to them
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Since it's genital, that skin is not ever really exposed in that way
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So there's no risk of them coming into contact with a sore if I were to have one
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If you have HSV-1 and you have a cold sore and you kiss your baby, it can be passed that way
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So, you know, thankfully I don't have that worry. So there's really no risk for them at all now
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I started sharing my journey with herpes online from the minute that I found out
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I've just always been open and honest about it. I think a lot of people were more so shocked that I just was so blatant to put it online
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and to post myself so vulnerably and expose such a, you know, a dark time
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The video that I posted of me crying was from, you know, literally the moment that I found out
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If you are sexually active and you know that you have an STD, then you need to inform people of that
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And I was just hurt. I was confused. I wasn't sure, you know, exactly what had happened
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I wanted to empower other people and just let them know that, like, you don't have to be ashamed of it
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It's not something that we should keep putting this, like, shame around because people aren't going to feel comfortable, to be honest
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The judgment for being a mom with herpes is wild. People said a lot of really, really mean things
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There was a lot of victim blaming. I think there's a lot of misconceptions around the transmission and how people can get it
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And people like to assume that it automatically means that you were sleeping around or you had multiple partners
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And you could be a virgin and get herpes. A huge judgment that I got was that I would no longer be able to breastfeed
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and that's false. I was able to breastfeed. I want to address the misconception that having herpes
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means that you have had or do have a lot of partners. This is completely false. You can be
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a virgin and still get herpes. It's passed via skin to skin. So it's not passed through bodily
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foods like breast milk or blood et cetera This person said she a s worker She brought this to herself So they assume that because I a worker that that means you know i putting myself at risk of catching something and so that must be how i got it which is false
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that's not how i got it somebody else said just nasty i'm not nasty help the child cps needs to
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be called immediately what are you going to tell cps when you call them i don't know that's a really
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tough burden to carry and leads to many difficult health reactions. I personally wouldn't put a child
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through it but to eat her own. I think that's somebody who just is uneducated. They don't
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really understand that, you know, it hasn't caused any health issues for my children at all
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If people with herpes didn't have babies, there would be way less people on the planet. That's
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very true. There's a lot of people who do have herpes who have healthy children and big families
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Somebody else said it's free to mind your own business and let people live their lives their way
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Thank you, Gloria. Very true. I think that me sharing my story has helped a lot of people and it's going to continue to help a lot of people
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I wouldn't say that I've ever felt ashamed based off of the comments that people have left because I know that it's not coming from a place of reality
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I know that they don't know me. They don't know the details of the story
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So what I love about my kids is that they are goofy. They have their own unique personalities
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Like, who is one of the silliest little guys you'll ever meet? And her, she's just so sweet and, like, docile
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She's very laid back. And you wanted to be a big brother, right? I always wanted him to be a big brother because I knew you would be really good at it
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The best part about being Preston and Priya's mom is getting to watch them
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and just seeing who they become as people. I want to teach people that herpes is not as bad as people make it out to be
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It's not the end of the world. And you can still have a very healthy and full life even if you have it
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What would you say to those who tried to? Humble yourself because it could happen to you a lot easier than you think
