With borders closed around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign parents have struggled to enter Ukraine to meet their surrogate-born infants for months.
But once their story caught the public eye in mid-May, things started to shift.
The biggest clinic that provides surrogacy programs in Ukraine, BioTexCom, has had 26 couples reunited with their babies during the lockdown, according to its lawyer Denys Herman.
However, 62 more babies are waiting for their parents while being taken care of by BioTexCom staff members.
According to Sergii Antonov, a lawyer and the head of Ukraine’s Medical and Reproductive Law Center, BioTexCom accounts for about half of the Ukrainian surrogacy market. As a result, there are presumably around 120 surrogate-born infants in Ukraine separated from their parents.
Ukraine is one of several countries in Europe that allows surrogacy programs for foreigners. Thousands of babies are born to surrogate mothers in the country every year.
Read more: Surrogacy in Ukraine is big but little-regulated industry
In May, BioTexCom published a video in an attempt to attract the public’s attention to the issue of foreign parents separated from their babies. It provoked mixed reactions from officials and a public discussion on the ethics of surrogacy.
Nevertheless, the clinic’s footage paved the way for some progress.
Although Liudmyla Denysova, the Verkhovna Rada commissioner for human rights, initially criticized surrogacy, she later changed her mind and stepped in to help.
Denysova encouraged couples to contact her so that she can help them receive permission from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enter Ukraine.
Before that, the parents had to contact the ministry through the embassies of their countries, which slowed down the process. Many of them were denied permission during the quarantine.
Herman says that the situation changed after Denysova got involved — it now takes about a week for a couple to get permission, and most of those that applied received it.
“The procedure has become simpler,” Herman told the Kyiv Post.
In total, over 50 couples that BioTexCom is serving have been allowed to enter the country during the lockdown. Some of them haven’t arrived yet, while others have come and are staying in isolation, as the foreign affairs ministry requires. They are still waiting to meet their newborns.
However, 26 couples have already been able to pick up their surrogate-born babies from BioTexCom.
Herman says they come from the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain and Argentina.
One of them is the Argentine couple Jose Perez and Flavia Lavorino, who met their newborn son on June 10, Reuters reported. The parents have struggled to have a baby for years. When they finally achieved their long-held dream of becoming parents, they had to wait for over two months after their baby boy was born to see him because of border restrictions.
There are now 62 infants at BioTexCom who are still separated from their parents. And more babies are expected to be born in the near future.
Herman says that they hope the quarantine, which is set to be in force in Ukraine until June 22, won’t be prolonged and all the parents will be able to meet their babies soon after that.
