How Ukraine’s surrogate moms have survived the battle

Written by Maria Verenikova and Andrew E. Kramer

After months huddled in a basement to flee shelling, a surrogate mom named Viktoria was capable of get her household, and the unborn little one she carried for overseas shoppers, away from the preventing in northeastern Ukraine.

She may achieve this, she mentioned, as a result of her employer, a surrogacy company, had provided monetary assist and an condominium within the capital, Kyiv, to make sure her security and the infant’s. And though she had initially been reluctant to go away her house, Kharkiv, even below artillery assaults, she is now glad to reside in relative safety.

A Ukrainian pediatrician and neonatal physician, Olena Borisivna, put together to take an toddler who was born to Viktoria, a surrogate mom, to the nursery at a maternity hospital in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

“I would not have left if the clinic had not persuaded me,” she mentioned.

Viktoria is one in every of a whole lot of surrogate moms who’ve introduced pregnancies to time period over seven harrowing months, working for security as air-raid sirens sounded, surviving in bomb shelters, then fleeing from ruined cities to ship youngsters for folks overseas.

Before Russia invaded in February, Ukraine was a serious supplier of surrogacy, one of many few international locations that enables it for overseas shoppers. After a pause within the spring, surrogacy businesses are resuming their work, reviving an trade that many childless folks depend on however that critics have known as exploitative and that, in peacetime, was already ethically and logistically complicated.

Diana and Viktoria, each surrogate moms, watch Viktoria’s son exterior the condominium complicated the place many surrogate moms reside whereas pregnant in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

Salvos of Russian missiles that hit Ukrainian cities final week underscored the damaging surroundings through which the trade operates.

In interviews, a dozen surrogate moms mentioned that additional monetary assist they acquired had helped guarantee their very own households’ survival by permitting them to go away areas below siege or often bombarded with artillery. But the surrogacy trade has additionally, in some situations, taken moms into new risks they’d not have confronted by staying house, reminiscent of Russian checkpoints to go away occupied territory.

Babies born to Ukrainian surrogate moms wait to be collected by organic mother and father on the BioTexCom nursery in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

Viktoria, like different surrogate moms who agreed to be interviewed and photographed at a clinic in Kyiv, spoke on the situation of utilizing solely her first identify. Some of the ladies had considerations about privateness, and others had safety considerations, both for relations who stay in Russia-occupied territory or due to their very own ties there.

Agencies are additionally adapting to the battle. Besides serving to surrogate moms and their households relocate to safer cities, some have needed to give you methods to care for youngsters as their organic mother and father struggled to beat wartime and pandemic hurdles to succeed in Ukraine. Svitlana Burkovska, the proprietor of 1 small company, Ferta, took infants into her own residence for months.

Ukrainian surrogate moms look ahead to checkups at BioTexCom clinic in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times) — NO SALES

Fears that the enterprise would unravel — particularly as Russia tried and did not seize Kyiv within the battle’s early weeks — have proved overblown. Life in western and central Ukraine has largely stabilised regardless of preventing in southern and jap areas and the continued dangers of long-range missile strikes.

“We did not lose a single one,” mentioned Ihor Pechenoha, the medical director at BioTexCom, Ukraine’s largest surrogacy company and clinic. “We managed to bring all our surrogate mothers out from under occupation and shelling.”

But for months, ladies who thought they’d earn cash by giving life have needed to first shield their very own lives.

Outside the capital, pregnant surrogate moms have slept in vehicles on dusty roadsides whereas escaping occupied territory, have confronted interrogation by Russian troopers and have lived in underground shelters.

Viktoria, stands exterior the room at a maternity hospital, the place she was to ship by C-section the infant she was carrying for organic mother and father in China. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

In the primary month of the battle, 19 infants born to surrogate moms for one company had been marooned in a basement nursery in Kyiv. For weeks and months, it was troublesome or inconceivable for organic mother and father to succeed in their youngsters in Ukraine, however by August, all the infants had gone house.

The battle has not diminished the enchantment of surrogacy for {couples} determined to have youngsters, mentioned Albert Tochylovsky, the director of BioTexCom. “They are in a hurry,” he mentioned. “To explain, ‘We have a war going on,’ doesn’t work.”

Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, BioTexCom was impregnating about 50 ladies monthly. Since the start of June, the corporate has begun no less than 15 new pregnancies.

Olha, a surrogate mom, waits for a checkup on the Lita Clinic in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

With the cash that the enterprise brings in, Tochylovsky mentioned, surrogate moms have been moved from front-line cities and Russia-occupied areas to safer locations, like Kyiv.

Many ladies within the enterprise describe surrogacy as “the job” — a time period that docs say avoids emotional attachment to the infants they carry. On a current morning in Kyiv, about 20 ladies queued on the firm’s reception space for checkups or to organize for a being pregnant.

All of them had battle tales to inform, of shut calls and painful losses. All, together with Viktoria — who was carrying a child for Chinese shoppers, as many surrogate moms do in Ukraine — mentioned they had been motivated by cash, the love for their very own youngsters and the will to maintain them protected.

Surrogacy is prohibited in lots of international locations for a wide range of causes, together with criticism that it leaves poor ladies susceptible to exploitation by shoppers and businesses. Advocates of gestational surrogacy, through which surrogate moms endure in vitro fertilisation to ship the infants of shoppers who can not have youngsters on their very own, say the observe is invaluable to such {couples} and affords a doubtlessly life-changing sum for surrogates.

Svitlana Burkovska, the proprietor of a small surrogacy company, holds a child born to one in every of her surrogate moms, whereas her personal daughter performed close by, in Kyiv. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times)

“I do it for money, but why not?” mentioned Olha, 28, who began a brand new surrogate being pregnant this summer season. “I have good health and can help people who have money” and wish youngsters, she added.

Before the battle, the enterprise thrived in Ukraine, the place surrogate moms sometimes earn about $20,000 per little one they ship. The battle has made monetary safety much more pressing.

One 30-year-old surrogate mom, who spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of she had evacuated from Melitopol in Russia-occupied southern Ukraine and feared she may very well be focused for reprisal, mentioned she credited the job with getting her household out. “With the help of surrogacy,” she mentioned, “I saved my family.”

Owing to the nine-month lead time, businesses can not make snap choices about persevering with or halting the enterprise after developments like final week’s flurry of missile strikes, and pregnant moms can’t be moved to jurisdictions exterior Ukraine that don’t recognise custody for organic mother and father in surrogate births.

The battle has created many new quandaries for the ladies, shoppers and medical personnel. Viktoria and her household face one such dilemma: Her cost will assist them survive, however it’s removed from clear the place they need to go after her restoration from a C-section. The household has remained within the condominium rented by the clinic in Kyiv; her hometown, Kharkiv, continues to be hit by common shelling.

For many surrogate moms, the query was about the place to ship. Threats included not simply preventing, however how authorities established by the Russian occupation authorities would deal with a surrogate delivery.
A surrogate named Nadia lived in a village in Russia-occupied territory that was not prone to artillery shelling. But she determined to evacuate to Ukrainian-controlled territory to ship the infant, lest the organic mother and father be disadvantaged of custody, and he or she lose the charge.

She spent two days together with her husband and 11-year-old daughter sleeping in a automobile on a roadside that’s generally shelled, ready to cross the entrance line.

Burkovska went into the battle with two stranded surrogate infants in her care. In distinction to most surrogacy businesses, she cares for newborns in her own residence earlier than organic mother and father choose them up. For a time, she needed to shelter in a basement with the newborns, her accomplice and her personal youngsters.

As extra infants arrived within the first months of battle, she wound up with seven newborns whose organic mother and father couldn’t instantly retrieve them, as journey to wartime Ukraine turned troublesome and as some remaining coronavirus restrictions, like China’s, prompted delays.

Burkovska’s personal youngsters helped look after the infants till their mother and father may get them. By August, a lot of the mother and father had arrived to choose up their youngsters.

A Chinese shopper with BioTexCom, Zhang Zong, was a type of who struggled to succeed in Kyiv by means of journey delays. He mentioned the wait had been excruciating. “I was very worried because of the war,” he mentioned.
Meeting his 6-month-old son, he mentioned, was each thrilling and slightly unusual. “I was extremely excited when they let me hug him,” Zhang mentioned. “He has been here for a long time and everyone hugs him, everyone likes him, and I am not so special.”

But he added that was just for now. “When he grows up,” Zhang mentioned, “I can tell him this story.”