Kyiv resident Maia Mikhaluk hoped that her first grandchild would be born “under the peaceful, free sky of an independent Ukraine.”
Instead, her daughter, Sasha, gave birth last week amid aerial bombardments as air raid sirens wailed and Russian soldiers advanced on the capital’s northwest suburbs. (Sasha preferred that her full name not be used.)
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“The ambulance came quickly in spite of the air raid sirens being on at the time,” Mikhaluk said, describing her daughter’s journey to the maternity ward of a Kyiv hospital. “And just a few minutes before it arrived, there was a loud explosion that shook our windows.”
The whole family was fearful about the baby coming under such traumatic circumstances, but the next day, the baby girl, Briana, was born without incident. Mikhaluk calls her a “beautiful miracle.”
More than 400 babies were born in Kyiv during the first weeks of the war, according to information from the mayor’s office. And nearly 4,000 Ukrainian couples wed during the conflict’s initial 10 days, the country’s Ministry of Justice says.
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Despite the harrowing trip in the ambulance, Mikhaluk said, Briana’s birth has brightened what has otherwise been a grim few weeks for the family.
“Even though it started full of concerns, Brianna’s birth erased everything negative, even if temporarily,” the new grandmother said.
The family considered sheltering in their apartment building’s basement as fighting near the capital intensified. But Sasha was already 38 weeks pregnant when the conflict began, and they live on the building’s seventh floor. Going up and down the stairs was too risky. So, instead, they created a makeshift shelter in the corridor between Mikhaluk’s and Sasha and her husband’s apartments.
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“The last months, we knew that there was a growing threat. We were urging my daughter and her husband to leave Kyiv,” Mikhaluk said. “But she has a hospital here, and her doctor. So, they decided to stay. And of course, we all thought we wouldn’t leave without them. And besides, my husband is a pastor, so we felt that it’s important for us to stay here with our people.”
Mikhaluk said that for her, the looming Russian threat has “lost any human face.”
“I keep wondering if these people have hearts?” she said. “What is happening in the head of a Russian pilot who drops bombs on civilian buildings knowing that there are children, there are women, there are people who are elderly who can’t get out of there?”
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Each day, more children are born even as the war rages. Mikhaluk said that her heart breaks for the many Ukrainian babies who take their first breaths in a bomb shelter.
“But we know our kids will grow strong,” she said. “They will know the true value of freedom, and they will love Ukraine even more than we do.”