Bridget Gordon, HIV-Positive 'Oprah Show' Guest, Addresses Her Decision To Get Pregnant

 
In 2010, the "Oprah Show" audience met Bridget, a woman with a high-paying career, a beautiful home in Los Angeles and a loving husband... or so she thought. Shortly after her honeymoon, Bridget got sick and visited her doctor, who delivered shocking news: She was HIV-positive.
Bridget's husband John tested positive the very next day. Devastated, Bridget called and told her brother about their diagnoses. Her brother gave her very specific instructions.
"'You ask [your husband] how many men he's had sex with,'" Bridget remembers her brother saying.
So she did. John's response gave Bridget another shock.
"He said, 'Two,'" she told Oprah during her 2010 interview. "I said, 'Oh, really? When were you going to tell me that?'"
Bridget then opened her husband's computer and discovered that he had been cruising men-for-men websites, looking for other HIV-positive married men to have sex with. She threw him out of the house, filed for divorce and sued him for fraud.
After struggling to make peace with her HIV-positive status, Bridget told Oprah she found a way to move on, which included a new boyfriend and a planned pregnancy. Bridget, who was pregnant at the time of her "Oprah Show" appearance, conceived "the old-fashioned way," through unprotected sex -- a decision that drew criticism from those who thought she was putting her unborn child's health at risk.
"But you were willing to take that risk?" Oprah asked back then.
"Yes," Bridget nodded.
"Are you worried about the baby contracting HIV?" Oprah asked.
Bridget explained that she was taking a drug recommended to HIV-positive pregnant women. "It gives the baby less than one percent [chance] of getting the disease," she said. "Hopefully, little girl won't have HIV."
Bridget's little girl, Nina, is now 3 years old. "Oprah: Where Are They Now?" recently caught up with the family to see how they are doing today.
"The baby was born healthy, alert, eyes wide open and perfect," Bridget says. "When I heard she was HIV-negative… [it was a] huge relief."
Others still reacted to Bridget's planned pregnancy with anger. "There were people who were absolutely livid and said that I was irresponsible, that it was unfair to my child, that I shouldn't have children," she says. "It was really saddening because it told me that we really have not come as far as we should have after 30 years of this disease being present in America and around the world. People still have so much to learn."
"Oprah: Where Are They Now?" airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.