21 babies stuck in a bomb shelter in Ukraine.

[Whitefire]

A very short clip that probably falls short of reflecting the reality. No thought of the women who carried and birthed these babies, though one day, maybe the featured baby might learn the truth.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-60764100

Those poor women. And the poor babies

It's all very well collecting baby Leonard and taking him back to Germany but what about Leonard's birth mother and her safety?? Any chance that any of these commissioning people would be prepared to offer a place of safety to the women who gave birth to these babies?

Ugh and the commissioning father at the end: “we risked our lives for him.” No. You risked his and his mother’s life so that you and your wife could live out your narcissistic dream by commissioning and trafficking a baby. Where is the baby’s mother? How is she? Did she sustain a severe birth injury (1 in 16 women do) or did she require an emergency c section (as 1 in 4 or 5 women do)? How is her mental health? Is she among the 1 in 10 women who experience postpartum depression? Are rates of PPD perhaps higher in surrogate birthing mothers? I imagine it is certainly significantly higher risk in a war zone when your entire life is torn apart. This is all so disgusting. Those poor babies and their poor mothers.

Quite a few of those babies are more than three weeks old. There are reports of a couple who are six months old, I think in the same bomb shelter as I recognise the nurse from a different report.
These are babies who are ordered like ordering a new car and someone just hasn't got round to collecting them.

There's a great Twitter thread about it here.

twitter.com/wombsnotforrent/status/1503500413286461440?s=21

And a report by CNN

twitter.com/cnn/status/1503483046443593731?s=21

Some of the babies looked quite a few months old. What does their future look like?

The disruptions and trauma is stacking up in those children's developing brains, through the situation the commissioning parents put them into. I wonder if the commissioning parents are prepared for the traumatised, confused toddlers and children these babies will very soon be, with their disrupted bonds with carers, the mounting confusion over language and going to parents who don't speak the language they're already learning as their mother tongue, and their traumatic experiences of being without a bonded adult or a secure attachment in the middle of a war zone. Or the reality of how very hard parenting a traumatised child with disrupted attachments can be.

I also wonder what will happen when a commissioning parent feels unwilling or unable to take on this specially created human with all these needs and challenges and experiences. What will happen to these children if they are now unwanted?

Jesus, 6 months old. What about attachment, socialising, language. If I'd left my baby in the hospital for 6 months.... This should be a crime on top of all the crappy stuff that 'commissioned' these babies. Doesn't child abandonment cut across borders?

Did the kid not go with the curtains?

The poor babies and their poor mothers. The irony of the German couple saving ‘their’ baby.

Totally sickening

The arrogance of the “father”: “We risked our lives to get him.”

It’s heartbreaking, seeing all those babies lined up in cots. Most are definitely much older than the war, so why haven’t the “parents” picked them up yet? Agree with PP - they’ve ordered a baby as you would order a new piece of furniture and not bothered collecting them yet.

I read this story in the paper this morning and was surprised (should I be) that the surrogate mothers seem to have abandoned the babies and parents can’t get there to collect them. The babies are victims of a business transaction gone wrong. I’m not sure I could give birth to a baby and just abandon it even if it wasn’t genetically mine.

@mdh2020

I read this story in the paper this morning and was surprised (should I be) that the surrogate mothers seem to have abandoned the babies and parents can’t get there to collect them. The babies are victims of a business transaction gone wrong. I’m not sure I could give birth to a baby and just abandon it even if it wasn’t genetically mine.

Its a prime illustration of why treating human beings like comestibles is absolutely unacceptable and should be internationally banned.

No adult passionate desires to be parents justify what's been done to those babies and the harm that for some of them (just some, if they're very lucky) is likely to have lifetime consequences. Early childhood trauma and attachment difficulties are already a risk for every one of them by immediately removing them from their mother at birth. This is severe damage upon damage, and it's not a quick fix. In some cases it's not repairable at all and the person suffers all their life as a result.

A human created in full knowledge of this risk, and subjected to it because someone else wanted the experience of parenting them.

I also wonder; will commissioning parents want babies turning into toddlers, (let alone toddlers now with a lot of issues and a lot more personality whose response to adoption is not going to be yippee but omg who are you scary total strangers who don't speak my language and why are you taking me) or if they will want the experience of having the newborn and parenting a tiny baby and see this particular attempt at surrogacy as a failed one so need to start again. What is the commitment of the commissioning parents to these kids? Is there anything in the contract about the rights of the child?

Driving to work I was listening to a discussion regarding evacuating orphans and children. It struck my that THERE IS A REASON these babies are still in the bomb shelter and haven't been evacuated.
Ukraine law re surrogacy requires commissioning parents to turn up in person to transfer legal parentage to them.
Those six month old babies must still be legally the child of the surrogate mother and who knows where they will be now? They could be dead or among the many refugees who have fled Ukraine. The chances of them being traced are slim.
So I have no idea what the legal situation is if the surrogacy agency transports those babies across the border. They will probably have to be counted as orphans and maybe adopted.
The situation of those babies is terrible and they are not being saved for commercial reasons.
At least the German couple turned up to collect and hopefully the surrogate mother has been paid and can go to her family and do whatever she can to keep themselves safe.

@Whitefire

Some of the babies looked quite a few months old. What does their future look like?

To be blunt, considerably better than other orphans during war (these babies weren't all living at home with their birth mothers, they had already been relinquished.

And are pretty likely to do better than others fleeing with one parent to uncertain future, assuming survival on the route out.

I'm assuming it's 'his' baby if his sperm was used.

He was probably not allowed, for very good reason, to take other unrelated infants with him.

If they never make it to their paternal families for any reason, then they will be in a simiiar position to all other war orphans.

This is a good charity to consider supporting if you are concerned about babies and children caught up in war

www.warchild.org.uk

Sam Everingham who runs a surrogacy agency in Australia was talking about sending in SWAT teams a week or so ago. I thought it incredibly arrogant and misled. Can you imagine men with guns and top to toe in black descended the stairs into that basement. It would scare the shit out of the women caring for these babies and send the whole place into chaos even further.

Sure, his intentions were to save the innocent babies, but also to return them to their 'rightful owners' (the people who purchased them).

He is well-versed in the matters of international baby trafficking but didn't mention the documentation these children would need in order not to be considered stateless.

I can't see how even the basics will be provided for the women and babies in this basement. Nappies, formula, clothes for the babies, food for themselves. They must have a kitchen of sorts down there with some means to wash clothes? How long can you live like that, no natural light, no guarantee of help, worrying about your own family?

Though the CNN report I noticed there were no men, no security guards, I assume because men of fighting age are already fighting. These women are on their own with these babies and based on the numbers being reported (Everingham says 800 'pregnancies' currently) there will be more.

Here's the link to Sam and his SWAT teams.

www.mylondon.news/news/uk-world-news/im-sending-swat-teams-rescue-23329821

Not to derail, but...how do you hire a SWAT team do you think, can you hire the FBI for a week or so? Maybe Sam is just used to being able to buy what you want.

@mdh2020

I read this story in the paper this morning and was surprised (should I be) that the surrogate mothers seem to have abandoned the babies and parents can’t get there to collect them. The babies are victims of a business transaction gone wrong. I’m not sure I could give birth to a baby and just abandon it even if it wasn’t genetically mine.

But the whole narrative is that the birth mother won't get attached at all, that they are literally an incubator, and that their whole involvement stops as soon as the placenta is out.

One of the issues with surrogacy in Ukraine is that under Ukrainian law the commissioning couple are the ones with parental rights, not the birth mother. The birth mothers have been required to hand the babies over at birth and then have no legal right to care for them. It's built in to the process. If a birth mother decided she wanted to keep the baby, the commissioning couple would be able to have the child removed to their custody because they have parental rights. These babies have been in these holding nurseries since birth being cared for by nursery nurses until they can be collected by the commissioning couples.

@RoseslnTheHospital

One of the issues with surrogacy in Ukraine is that under Ukrainian law the commissioning couple are the ones with parental rights, not the birth mother. The birth mothers have been required to hand the babies over at birth and then have no legal right to care for them. It's built in to the process. If a birth mother decided she wanted to keep the baby, the commissioning couple would be able to have the child removed to their custody because they have parental rights. These babies have been in these holding nurseries since birth being cared for by nursery nurses until they can be collected by the commissioning couples.

The babies really are just commodities, aren’t they?

These babies have been in these holding nurseries since birth being cared for by nursery nurses until they can be collected by the commissioning couples

My heart breaks for them and I haven't carried any of them in my womb for nine months. How on earth must their mothers feel?

I've just seen a BBC report about this. A doctor in flak gear turning up to take two babies to the border where the German parents are waiting to collect them. Meanwhile the two surrogate mothers are heading back to Eastern Ukraine. You have to ask yourself why two women are going east while the rest of the country is escaping west. Dependent family left behind while they got moved to give birth? The very fact that they came from the east also raises questions. Were they from Luhansk or Donestsk where living conditions were absolutely desperate even before this war? What are they going back to? Imagine doing this because you're desperate for money and now you're living in an economy that's tanked, your house is very likely gone, any job you had may be gone, and you're either going to be living as a refugee or in a war zone. All that sacrifice and risk and you're no better off. It was like the women were being told, 'Thanks, hand it over. We're off to safety. Now you can bugger off.'

@Whitefire

Some of the babies looked quite a few months old. What does their future look like?

I wonder if they will end up with attachment disorders?

There is a webinar on this today. It's this evening so I may be able to join, I'd like to hear what the Ukrainian women can tell us about what is happening outside of these news reports.

twitter.com/wombsnotforrent/status/1505097471659286528?s=21

"She said: 'During the pandemic many of those newborn babies have not been picked up, so they have been stuck and are now being taken care of in orphanages.'
However, some orphanages have been emptied during the invasion and it is unknown where the children are.
The commissioner said: 'Surrogate mothers that gave birth to babies right now, these babies cannot be picked up either and they are a bit in a limbo,"

So surrogate-born babies born during the pandemic went to orphanages and now those orphanages are empty and no one knows where the children are...what?

If ever there was a reason to shut down baby factories in Ukraine, surely, if a global pandemic wasn't it then the Russian invasion is!

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10631009/Ukraines-surrogate-babies-cared-makeshift-underground-nursery-Kyiv.html