More and more Ukrainian soldiers are freezing their sperm before going to the front line.
Many couples dream of children – even if the worst were to happen.
– I don’t even dare to think about such a scenario, says Iryna, 29.
Kyiv. Iryna pats the blue plastic covers on her shoes before she steps into the fertility clinic in Kiev. She comes alone. When her husband Oles, 29, will come home next, she does not know.
If he ever returns.
Iryna scrolls, finds a picture of Oles, with clear blue sky as background. He is wearing the military uniform, helmet, radio on his chest, a cautious smile. A hundred miles away.
He is currently fighting in one of the bloodiest fronts in the war against Russia. When he was home in December, the couple decided: They wanted to freeze his sperm.
Nothing would stop their family dreams.
– We have always wanted to have children, although I never thought it would happen under these circumstances.
“I’d rather get pregnant in uncertain times, than lose the opportunity completely with him,” says Iryna.
The process used to freeze the sperm.
Embryologist Oksana Lyzohub, 30, shows around the cryolab.
At the reception at the private fertility clinic Ivmed, there are glossy brochures, with pictures of men holding babies, informing about the project where soldiers can freeze sperm and eggs for free. As insurance in case they were injured or killed on the front.
Since the clinic started the project, 150 people have chosen to use the service. The majority already have a partner, a third of the soldiers are single. Every week, an average of five new pairs of soldiers arrive. And more and more fertility clinics in Ukraine have started similar initiatives.
When Russia launched its large-scale invasion last year, Ukraine’s fertility industry came to a screeching halt. In April, most reopened – to a new reality.
In the past, the clients were often foreigners who wanted to take advantage of Ukraine’s liberal rules around surrogacy. Today, more and more Ukrainian couples are worried about the man going to fight at the front.
If the soldier dies in the field, the partner has the right to the biological material, if they signed the papers, says fertility doctor Halyna Strelko.
Halyna Strelko, fertility doctor at Ivmed, says that many soldiers who visit the clinic are silent. They have already had the most difficult discussions at home with their partner.
– But some say that it helps them psychologically to know that one day they can have children. Especially for those who don’t have any yet. It can be hard to think that they can die without leaving any offspring behind, she says.
If the soldier dies in the field, the partner has the right to the biological material, if they signed papers.
But a growing number of soldiers come alone, without being married, which is more problematic if he dies. So far, what happens with that sperm is a legal gray area.
– We can freeze it, we can save it. But otherwise we still can’t do anything with it if he falls, says Strelko.
As Kiev suffers continuous blackouts due to Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure, the lab is powered by generators to ensure the sperm is kept frozen at -196 degrees Celsius.
Embryologist Oksana Lyzohub, 30, shows around the cryolab. She wears a hairnet, with only dangling rhinestone earrings sticking out.
– Here is the fertilization station, she says, and points to colleague Maxim, who with feather-light hand movements fertilizes an egg, with his eyes in a microscope.
Oksana herself is freezing sperm in small tubes.
She pulls on gloves and lifts the lid of the cryo-storage so that liquid nitrogen seeps out in white veil clouds, like a spirit in the lamp. In sub-zero temperatures, sperm can be stored for several decades.
– Studies show that soldiers in combat have only half the fertility of “ordinary men”, due to physical injuries, infections, or lack of food and sleep. Therefore, it is important that they think about reproduction in time, says Oksana.
Nataliya Kyrkach-Antonenko, 37, is one of those women who is deeply grateful that she took the safe bet. She knew she wanted a big family, and had already gone through a miscarriage. Then husband Vitaly, 35, was called into the war.
– Right from the beginning, my husband was worried that I would be left alone, he realized the risks of war. He knew how much I love him and how important it is for me to have children, Nataliya writes to Aftonbladet in a message.
During one of Vitaly’s autumn leaves, the couple visited the cryoclinic in Kiev. A week later he was killed by shrapnel in the head. They had been a couple for almost two decades – in a second, the dreams of a nuclear family were torn away from them.
After his death, Nataliya took to social media to plead with others in Ukraine to go through the same process – before it’s too late. “It may be your only chance. I beg you, don’t put it off,” she wrote.
Today, three months later, she is determined to follow through on her plan.
– I want to pass on his legacy, see him in them. If I’m lucky, and can have more than one, I plan to give birth to all the embryos.
Even now, with Oles still on the battlefield, Iryna is trying to get pregnant.
Iryna shows a picture of Oles, with clear blue sky as background.
29-year-old Iryna continues into the reception where pictures hang in metal clips, of laughing babies that the fertility doctor helped into the world. She sits down on a bench. She and Oles met in a study group and got married five years ago.
Even now, with Oles still on the battlefield, she is trying to get pregnant. Coming here alone and going through an ivf process is tough. Mentally exhausting.
She wishes the war would end, preferably yesterday. That Oles is coming home. But the realization that the battles will take longer than she had hoped for begins to sink in.
Meanwhile, their future plans are chewing at half speed.
The hope is to have two children. If the embryo grows as it should, she may be forced to go through the pregnancy alone and raise the child by herself for long periods.
There is one question she prefers to avoid:
If husband Oles comes home in a coffin, does she still want to give birth to his child?
– I don’t even want to think about it, which some might think is stupid. We have discussed it several times and always end up in “let’s take it when it comes”. We don’t want to break down with worry already in advance.
– I try to believe in the best. We cannot decide the circumstances, we did not choose this war. But he is fighting for our future – and our future includes children.