Olena sat on a bench in a green park in Lviv as her two boys ran towards the playground. Her kids know they’ve moved temporarily to western Ukraine and that she’s having a baby, but that’s about it. The 31-year-old mother is a surrogate for a couple about 8,000 miles away in Australia. She said they wanted her to give birth in Lviv, which is considered relatively safe and is a short drive from the Polish border. Olena, whom The Globe and Mail is identifying only by her first name for fear of stigmatization, was 13 weeks pregnant when Russia invaded Ukraine. She remembers getting a call from her sister and laughing in disbelief. She then turned on the television confirming what she had been told. A little later, she heard the words of the couple whose baby she was holding. On a hot day in Lviv this summer, Olena said it’s hard to say whether she would have gone through with surrogacy if she had known the war was coming. “I understand from the moral side, it’s of course difficult because of the responsibility,” she said – responsibility not only for her own family but also for the baby. But being a surrogate mother has saved her and her family from poverty and debt, she added. “I have to raise my children, I have to feed them, and war takes money and does not give.” In recent years and long before the war, Ukraine has become known for its commercial surrogacy industry, with the country being one of the few that allows foreign couples to pay for a woman to carry a child. It’s an industry that has long shown wide disparities, with critics saying the practice highlights the disparity between Ukrainian women who are paid to carry the baby and wealthy couples. – whether foreign or local – paying them. This inequality has been greatly exacerbated by the war, with foreign couples from the safety of their homes still desperate to have a Ukrainian woman carry their baby, and Ukrainians needing financial help now more than ever. Surrogate mothers carrying foreign babies during war have faced enormous challenges. Some debated whether they should – or morally could – leave the country holding someone’s child. One woman said she had even come to terms with the idea of keeping the baby and raising it on her own if the parents could not reach Ukraine safely. While fertility clinics and surrogacy agencies ceased operations at the start of the invasion, many are now willing to welcome clients even as the war continues. The Russian invasion has destroyed Ukraine’s economy and women need job opportunities. The surrogate mothers told The Globe they just need the money. Nurses tend to infants in May 2020 at the Venice Hotel in Kyiv, their temporary home after travel restrictions due to COVID-19 prevented their parents from retrieving them. Two years later, the war has added more complications to Ukraine’s commercial surrogacy industry.Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images In Canada, it is illegal to pay a woman for surrogacy, but the baby’s parents can pay for expenses related to the pregnancy. In Ukraine, surrogate parents must be heterosexual, married and have a medical reason. And in Ukraine, the industry has flourished. Although there are no official statistics, it is estimated that two thousand babies are born through surrogacy every year in Ukraine. The women who spoke to The Globe said they will be paid among themselves $15,000 and $17,000 and additional expenses are covered throughout the pregnancy. They say they decided to become surrogates to take care of their families. Meanwhile, a couple can pay $50,000 or more to the Ukrainian agency that connects them with the surrogate mother and arranges all the medical procedures. Maria Dmytriyeva, a women’s rights activist in Ukraine, said as a feminist and a mother, she finds the practice of surrogacy generally abhorrent – not on the part of the women who bring the babies, but on the part of those who commission them – saying that endangers the health and life of the woman. He called foreign couples who continued to seek surrogates from Ukraine during the war “vultures”. Ukrainian agencies would argue that they are giving women a chance to earn money – and not forcing them to do anything. After Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, fertility clinics were closed for a time and agencies worked to relocate surrogate mothers to western Ukraine or some temporarily to neighboring countries. But as the war enters its seventh month and with fighting largely concentrated in the south and east, agencies are back in business and many are taking on new clients. And the process for international couples coming to pick up their babies in Ukraine has become faster than in the past, the agencies reported. In the past, a couple might stay in Kyiv for a few months, but now fast-track paperwork means they can leave with their baby after a few days. An Argentinian father holds his baby in a Kyiv hotel in 2020, the surrogacy agency he founded to house expectant parents in quarantine.Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press When Olena heard from the intended parents in a Viber text message in the early days of the war, they offered to relocate her to Sweden. After Olena refused, they suggested Hungary. The couple didn’t pressure her to leave, Olena said, but reminded her that she could if she wanted to. “I didn’t want to leave. I have my own apartment, I have two cats. I have my mom, I have a sister who eventually left… but for me I couldn’t leave them behind,” she said, “I could never forgive myself if something happened and I’m not near them and I’m sitting outside the Country. “ In the first weeks of the war, but also of her pregnancy, she didn’t think much about the baby. She just kept her hands on her belly, she said. But that changed when she felt the baby move. “When I felt the movement, the baby in here, I started saying, ‘Everything is going to be okay. We will be safe, don’t worry. We’ll both be safe. Everything will be fine.’” He said he remembers being briefly sheltered during an air raid alert in her bathroom and then realizing that if anything hit her house, it could be hit by ceramic tiles. He moved to the hall where there were no windows and realized it wasn’t safe there either. He stopped reading news about the war, he just scans the front pages. Since The Globe spoke with Olena that day, she had an emergency C-section. She could have lost the baby, she said, but luckily the baby survived and is recovering from surgery. Julia Osiyevska is the director of the New Hope surrogacy agency in Kyiv. Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail Julia Osiyevska, director and owner of the New Hope agency in Kyiv, which works with Olena, said both Olena and the baby are safe and well. Ms. Osiyevska said that at the beginning of the war her agency worked to relocate surrogate mothers to western Ukraine and some even to Moldova temporarily. The clinic and agency were closed for months. Fertility programs started again in June and, starting in July, the agency began accepting new clients, she said. But even while the agency’s work was on hold, couples interested in surrogacy continued to inquire about possibilities. “Well, we refused,” Ms. Osiyevska said. “It was very dangerous here. You can’t even fathom what’s going to happen.” She said managing the couple’s expectations during the war was not easy. They want the process to be done as quickly as possible, often telling her, “Work your magic, do whatever is possible.” “But it’s a new reality, right?” said Ms. Osiyevska. “It’s difficult. It’s more. It’s much more difficult to find a suitable surrogate because many ladies left Ukraine. “It’s strange, but people still think it’s normal and want to have a normal course and are very surprised when it’s not.” One thing parents need to realize is that they may not be able to be present in the delivery room, she said. If there is an air raid alert, for example, everyone in the delivery room must go to the basement for shelter. Fortunately, the deliveries have not yet been made to the shelters, he added. Ms. Osiyevska said she has two groups of Canadian clients who want to continue with surrogacy. A couple had a baby with the help of her agency in January and are looking to have a second child. The other pair is in the process of being matched with a wildcard. He said the process for parents leaving Ukraine with the baby is much easier than before the war. Now, they stay for a few days until the agency prepares their papers. Previously, he said parents had to make an appointment at an embassy and the whole process could take a month. But now – and depending on the country – her agency usually gives people the papers, they cross the border into a neighboring country and there they start the process of getting a passport for the baby. Another agency, the Biotexcom Reproduction Center, said embassies have been very cooperative, issuing emergency travel documents or letters stating that parents are allowed to leave Ukraine with their children. Jason Kung, a spokesman for Global Affairs Canada, said that since the war began on Feb. 24, GAC has provided consular assistance to 18 families with Canadian children born through surrogacy in Ukraine. “Consular officers stand ready to provide consular assistance to Canadians in the event of future surrogacy cases as required. Please note that this may not be a complete picture of the number of Canadian surrogacy cases in Ukraine and only includes cases where consular services were requested,” he said. A trolley is found abandoned under a damaged bridge in Irpin, west of Kiev, in the first…
