Joy amid sorrow: 1st birthdays muted for Ukrainian parents
KYIV, Ukraine — Anastasiia Morhun knew having a baby would change her life. She prepared rigorously, read up about newborns and daydreamed about the kind of parents she and her husband would be. But there was no way to be ready for the war that Russia unleashed against her country Feb. 24, 2022 — the day she gave birth to Roman.
“In one moment, everything was ruined,” Morhun said.
Instead of quiet first moments between mother and newborn, Morhun and Roman spent their early time together in the maternity hospital bomb shelter, as air raid sirens howled and missiles struck across Ukraine. Morhun was in pain from her cesarean section. It was, she said, “one long, long dark day.”
“I was learning to be a mother,” Morhun, 29, said. “But it was actually much easier than accepting the reality of war.”
The 24th of February is forever etched in the collective consciousness of all Ukrainians — and for women who gave birth and men who became fathers as the bombs began to fall, the day holds especially complicated emotions.
Bringing forth life just as the Russian onslaught started to snatch other lives away gave rise to both joy and terror — a sour-sweet mix for brand-new parents. When they blow out their kids’ first candle Friday — and on all birthdays in years to come — other Ukrainians will be lighting candles for the dead.
Of the past 365 days, Morhun said: “It’s been a very difficult but very happy year for me.”
She counts herself lucky: Roman is healthy and seems so far untraumatized. Morhun herself, however, hasn’t shaken off dark memories of his first days, particularly a missile attack that struck an apartment close to their maternity center in the capital, Kyiv, two days after his birth.
“That was the first time I felt truly scared,” she said. “You just grab your child and run to the basement.”
Alina Mustafaieva, 30, became a first-time mom when her daughter, Yeva, was born as first explosions echoed across Kharkiv, Ukraine’s secondlargest city, close to the eastern border with Russia.
“We saw a glow looming over the city,” she said. As nurses were checking Yeva, she forced herself to think positive thoughts, refusing to let the war destroy her magic moment.
“I gave birth to my Yeva, and I wanted to be happy about it,” she said.
Mustafaieva is so conflicted about Friday — a birthday for Yeva, a tragic anniversary for Ukraine — that she has decided to move her daughter’s celebrations back a day, to Saturday.
Her 1-year-old will be feted with a party, a photo booth, cake, balloons and a puffy dress.
Her mom wants Yeva to celebrate an “ordinary” birthday, as children not born that day do.