SUNDAY, MARCH 6 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
war in ukraine
The day the war started, she
said, one patient who was six
weeks pregnant called in a panic
and asked for a n abortion.
“I don’t know what will be
tomorrow or the day after tomor-
row, but now we do everything to
help our patients,” Yaniuta said.
In the dimly lit hallway, Serhii
and Maria Dubrovin sat curled
up on a cot in the hall, their faces
pressed close together. They
were expecting their first child, a
girl. Already two days past theirBlissfully unaware of the world
outside, Richard — a Scottish
straight — reclines on her desk,
his red and blue bowls on the
floor.
The war has always felt closer
to Yaniuta than to many other
residents of Kyiv. She is from
Crimea, which Russia annexed in- Her family is still there. She
wiped tears from her eyes as she
described the surreal nature of
the past week, during which she
had worked nearly nonstop.
PHOTOS BY HEIDI LEVINE FOR THE WASHINGTON POSTCLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Ana, who like others asked to be identified only her first name for security reasons, with her newborn in an underground shelter at Kyiv Maternity Hospital No. 5 on Thursday. New
parents Yola and Alexi with their baby at Hospital No. 5. Max Chiciuc and his wife, Iuliia Kuznietsova, in the underground maternity ward of the Isida clinic on Wednesday. Normally the room is a cafeteria.
around 1 p.m. and they were able
to reach the clinic safely.
But like the other couples
around them, they now have to
consider even scarier prospects:
what might come next.
They have no document for
the baby beyond a paper from the
clinic, and said it’s currently
impossible to obtain a birth cer-
tificate. With Russian troops
cl osin g in on Kyiv, their plan w as
to leave the city quickly, move
about 200 miles to the west and
stay there until they c ould sort
out their next steps.
Chiciuc’s grandmother used to
recount stories from World War
II. “I couldn’t really feel her
words,” he said. “But now I t hink
I know what it means.”
“You can lose, you can die,
basically in every moment,” he
said.
His ex-wife and daughter left
Kyiv to flee the fighting and
probably will move to Poland,
Chiciuc said. Seeing the distance
grow between him and his
daughter is painful.
Still, bringing a new life into
the world at a t ime like this is
something worth being celebrat-
ed.
“Babies are born. Life contin-
ues,” Chiciuc said. “But it will
never be the same as it was
before the war.”due date on Wednesday, they said
their friends are joking that the
baby is just “waiting until the
war is over,” Maria said.
Like Vasyl, Serhii is of fighting
age. He cannot travel abroad,
and many of his peers have
picked up weapons to fight on
the streets. He doesn ’t plan to do
the same.
“I thought about it and I think
it’s my duty to be with my wife,”
he said.
Off the main hallway, inside
what once was a cafeteria, new-
born babies in bassinets were
lined up against the walls as
medical staff passed through to
check on them. Sitting nearby
were Max Chiciuc and his wife,
Iuliia Kuznietsova, who had re-
cently welcomed their son, Boh-
dan.
The baby was due Feb. 23.
Even as many of their relatives
fled Kyiv in fear, the couple knew
they had to stay to see through
his birth.
They worried labor might be-
gin at night, with the city under
curfew, when it would be danger-
ous to drive. Or that they would
fall victim to an attack before the
delivery. At one point, a m issile
landed less than 300 y ards from
their apartment.
Luckily, when the time came,
Kuznietsova went into laborBut they are limited. Vasyl is
unable to leave Ukraine, like all
men under age 60, who are
covered under a general mobili-
zation to fight. But he also does
not want to join the territorial
defense while trying to care for a
newborn.
“My wife really needs me,” he
said.
For now they are just trying to
focus on the joy their daughter
will bring them after years of
hoping for a child. They are
considering naming her Victoria
— for victory.
As of Wednesday night, doc-
tors at this clinic had delivered
22 babies since the invasion be-
gan — including one whose par-
ents named her Una, a nickname
for Ukraine.
Yaniuta, the medical director,
spent more than a decade train-
ing to be an obstetrician-gyne-
cologist. Nothing could have pre-
pared her for this. “They’re
sca red, they’re stressed,” she said
of her patients.
And so is she. Her husband
moved to the hospital to help
support her. Their cat, Richard, is
with them, too.
In her small office on the main
floor of the clinic, her husband
sleeps on a green twin-size mat-
tress on the floor. She sleeps on a
blue fake leather couch nearby.hairless dog named Bonya, wear-
ing a blue puffy vest decorated
with skulls and crossbones, runs
up and down the hall.
Bonya’s family, Helena and
Vasyl, both 35, were awaiting a
Caesarean section f or their first
child, a girl. The war meant they
had to bring their dog along.
Helena has been diagnosed
with placenta pravia, a condition
that can cause serious bleeding
during delivery. The hospital has
stocked up on enough blood to
assist her. But concerns over the
delivery — and bringing their
daughter into the conflict — have
left her very anxious.
“The main feeling is fear,” said
Helena, who like her husband
requested that only her first
name be used for security rea-
sons. “We don’t have a plan
afterward and we don’t know
where we might go.”
She sat on a cot at the far end
of the hallway, hunched over in
pink-striped pajamas and a blue
bathrobe. A medical device
beeped from a closet nearby.
Bonya played with a to othbrush
on the floor — her squeaky toy
was too loud for the many other
patients in the hall.
The couple have weighed their
options for after the baby’s birth.
MATERNITY FROM A
In maternity ward bunker, ‘they’re scared, they’re s tressed’
Vasil and his pregnant wife, Helena, arrive in the makeshift
underground maternity ward of t he Isida clinic last week.“I don’t know what will be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow,
but now we do everything to help our patients.”
Saar Yaniuta, gynecologist and medical director of the Isida clinic in Kyiv