- We were expecting the delivery on the 23rd of February.
We knew that the situation was getting more tension.
When it started, my relatives left Kyiv, but we couldn't leave
Kyiv, because we didn't know when the delivery will start.
We were staying in our apartment when we got these alarms,
air attacks.
We really were scared when the first missile
hit 300 meters from our house.
And we were hoping that delivery will not start during the night,
because it was quite dangerous to move around the city.
And we were very lucky that it actually started around 1:00 pm
and we safely reached the hospital by our car.
- In these seven days, we have already done with 21 babies,
21 deliveries,
some of the deliveries both in our shelter,
but we tried to give births in more clean rooms,
in our delivery rooms, in our operating rooms.
But if we have a bombing and a siren,
we go to the shelter,
and there is our delivery room with all our stuff
and our patient now have to go to shelter.
We try in the day go to the ward, to the room,
and the patient take a shower, have a, like, normal life.
But the evening, at 6:00 pm, we go to shelter
and stay at night at the shelter, all of us.
- It's unbelievable.
Yeah.
I've never thought that -- well,
my grandmother told me stories from the Second World War,
and, you know, I couldn't really feel her words.
But now I think I know what it means.
You can lose and die, basically, in every moment.
Yeah.
But now, we have a responsibility for our son,
and yeah, it's much more complicated.
- I don't know what it will be tomorrow or day after tomorrow,
but now we do everything to help for our patient.
- Did you all think about going to Poland?
- No.
I don't think about it.
But I don't know.
I don't. - I'm 35 and 2 days --
35 weeks and 2 days pregnant now.
We want in the countryside,
where my grandparents are, to stay there.
We thought that it's gonna be a bit more safe place
for us these days.
It wasn't, because it appeared that kind of the village
we were in, it's next to
Vasylkiv, and, like, that night, the bombing started,
and I got my contractions going on.
So I was advised to take some medicine,
and thank God it stopped the contractions.
So, and after that, we just waited till the morning
and went through all the, like,
empty, ghost roads and empty city
and got into a clinic that we were, like,
supposed to get into, so -- -For the most part,
we live in Chicago, Illinois, for the past year and a half.
Yeah, we stayed in Miami, Florida.
In the middle of October, we flew here, in Ukraine,
to baptize Nick and introduce Nick
to his big family in Ukraine.
Then, unfortunately, we got COVID,
and we decided to stay through the holidays.
- And afterwards, I got some complications with my pregnancy,
and doctors said that I can't fly,
so we decided to stay a bit more.
Yeah, and then it was too late.
It's amazing what they are doing.
There is a part for women who are in --
not, like, in labor, who are pregnant
or have some complications and stuff.
And, like, right after that,
there is a part for women who just gave birth.
So you can hear, like, everything.
Some of the women have to be with their, like, husbands,
as I am,
and others have to be with their dog,
because they can't just, like, throw it away.
So it's, like, a pretty amazing experience,
so I am not kind of panic, you know?
I'm trying to embrace it, you know?
I'm trying to embrace that situation
and trying to believe in good future
for me and my, like, kids.
- She's my fighter.
She's been amazing, because she keeps telling me,
like, same thing --
She's like, "Ukrainian people are just a different breed,
and they're never gonna give up."
And she's not gonna give up, and she says that --
I love you, too.
- And babies are born, life continues,
but it will never be the same as it was before the war.