Couples are kept apart from their surrogate babies by travel bans
Side by side in steel cots in Kyiv’s Hotel Venice lie around 50 newborn babies, mewling at the world as nurses comfort them.
But these babies are not abandoned or unwanted. Far from it. They are the product of surrogacy arrangements with Ukranian mothers who gave birth to them on behalf of couples desperate for children.
The problem is that those couples cannot travel to the former Soviet republic because of travel restrictions imposed to stem the spread of coronavirus.
The Telegraph has discovered a similar picture in several countries where surrogacy has become a way for women to earn desperately needed money by giving birth on behalf of more affluent families. These include Georgia, India, the United States, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.
Travel bans have left an unknown number of intended parents across the world worried about missing out on vital early bonding experiences or even fearful of ever seeing the babies they longed for.
The situation is particularly difficult in Ukraine and Georgia, where dozens of babies born since lockdown are now seven weeks old and in desperate need of stable parenting.
One such parent is Maria, whose son Kaloyan was born on April 17, a month after the border closed – meaning she was not present at the birth and has been unable to travel from her home in Galicia, northern Spain, to be united with him.
“It’s very difficult,” she told The Telegraph. “I’ve been counting the days since he was born, and I’m very anxious about him and how he is.”
The Spanish government, which opposes surrogacy, is unwilling to help Maria travel to Ukraine. She has had to pay a nanny €2,500 (£2,229) a month to care for Kaloyan. That is on top of the €40,000 fee she paid to an agency to arrange the surrogate birth. “All I can do is wait for travel restrictions to be lifted or to be allowed into the country under special humanitarian measures,” said Maria, who moved to Spain from Bulgaria 20 years ago. “In the meantime, the nanny sends me pictures of my son. But it’s not the same. I want to be with him and hold him.”
Some parents managed to get into Ukraine before the barriers went up on international travel in March. Others, including from the US and Australia, have made it through after a complex and risky overland journey taking as much as nine hours from Minsk, in Belarus. But now they cannot leave with their children until restrictions are lifted.
The Biotexcom clinic, which arranges surrogacy births in Ukraine where the procedure is legal, is caring for around 50 surrogate babies who cannot be collected. Surrogate mothers working with the firm receive a fee of around £14,000 – enough to buy a house in Ukraine – to give birth on behalf of adoptive parents from as far afield as the US, China, Britain, Sweden and Ireland. Denis Herman, Biotexcom’s lawyer, said: “The children are all provided with food. A sufficient number of employees look after them, but there is no substitute for parental care. We try to send photos of children to the parents, try to make conference calls, but this can’t replace communication in direct contact.” Svetlana Tkachenko, who handles English-speaking clients at Kyiv-based Biotexcom, told The Telegraph that at least 14 couples who have found a surrogate mother through their clinic have gone through a cumbersome procedure of going back and forth between the Ukrainian embassies in their country and their own country’s foreign ministries to be granted a permit to enter Ukraine. The parents were then placed in quarantine in Kyiv, and were allowed to take their newborn children only after that.
Surrogacy has become a global phenomenon. Latest figures show that in 2012, the industry was worth an estimated £4.7billion a year. But the religious and cultural sensitivities around surrogacy mean many find it hard to get help from their own authorities to travel to the country where their babies have been born.
Growing Families, an international not-for-profit group for surrogates, donors and parents, told The Telegraph that it has been contacted by hundreds of couples desperate to be with their babies. Sam Everingham, its global director, said: “A number of parents are too scared or unable to travel, and many others where one parent only makes the journey. As a result, dozens of infants remain under the care of maternity hospitals, surrogates or home nurses.” Growing Families says countries such as France, Spain, China, Poland and Germany are refusing to assist their citizens. It knows of intended parents from China who have been unable to travel to the US to collect their babies. Mr Everingham called for more cooperation between governments to protect babies during the pandemic. “The immense changes in access to countries is putting the futures of hundreds of newborns at risk,” he said.
‘The nanny sends me pictures of my son, but it’s not the same. I want to be with him and hold him’