‘Please get our babies out’: American couple who welcomed preemie twins via a surrogate in Kyiv issue desperate plea for help as they fight to rescue their newborns from war-torn Ukraine
- Alex Spektor, 46, and Irma Nuñez, 48, are doing everything they can to keep their newborn babies, Lenny and Moishe, safe amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- The twins were born at 32 and a half weeks – two months early – via surrogate on Friday at Adonis maternity hospital in Kyiv, after a ‘complicated’ pregnancy
- Due to their small size, the babies (who weigh around four pounds each) are now facing terrifying health complications as a war rages on outside
- As ‘staff and supplies dwindle’ at the ‘unstable and dangerous’ hospital, the parents are desperate to transfer the four-day-old babies to a safer area
- The parents, from Georgia, want to move them to a hospital which has a bomb shelter, however, they are struggling to find an ambulance to do so
An American couple who welcomed twin preemie babies via surrogate in Ukraine are now in a desperate fight to get their children out of the war-torn capital.
Alex Spektor, 46, and Irma Nuñez, 48, from Georgia, are doing everything they can to keep their newborn babies, Lenny and Moishe Spektor, safe amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The twin boys were born at 32 and a half weeks – two months early – via surrogate on Friday at Adonis maternity hospital in Kyiv, after a ‘complicated’ pregnancy.
Due to their small size, the babies (who weigh around four pounds each) are now facing terrifying health complications – including having trouble breathing – as a war rages on right outside the hospital walls.
As ‘staff and supplies dwindle’ at the ‘unstable and dangerous’ hospital, the parents are desperate to transfer the four-day-old babies to a safer area.
Come home: An American couple who welcomed twin preemie babies via surrogate in Ukraine are now in a desperate fight to get their children out of the war-torn capital
Alex Spektor, 46, and Irma Nuñez, 48, from Georgia, are doing everything they can to keep their newborn babies, Lenny and Moishe Spektor, safe amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
The twins were born at 32 and a half weeks – two months early – via surrogate on Friday at Adonis maternity hospital in Kyiv, after a ‘complicated’ pregnancy
Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine on Thursday, with missiles raining from the sky, tanks rolling across the border, and masses of attack helicopters swarming on capital Kyiv
‘It’s unimaginable, what can I say? It’s impossible to wrap your mind around,’ Alex said during a recent interview with the Today show.
Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine on Thursday, with missiles raining from the sky, tanks rolling across the border from Belarus, and masses of attack helicopters swarming on capital Kyiv after Russian leader Vladimir Putin personally gave the order to invade.
Ukrainian troops are fighting Russian forces for control of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, 60 miles north of the capital Kyiv, amid fears the battle could damage storage facilities holding nuclear waste sparking a fallout that could blanket Europe.
The couple is desperate to transfer the babies to a safer area, and eventually bring them home to the U.S., but their special medical needs pose a major problem.
‘The fact that they’re premature plays against us – there’s a conflict,’ Alex continued. ‘They need to stay put. We need to take them out.’
The parents want to move the little boys to a different hospital – which has a basement bomb shelter – however, they cannot find an ambulance available to transport them.
‘They came into the world two months early, at the end of a complicated pregnancy and the beginning of a war,’ their mom, Irma, wrote on a Facebook page created to help the twins.
‘We need your help to bring them home safely and to help other newborn babies, parents, and their caregivers stranded at the hospital with them.
‘The twins cannot cannot be moved without medical support. They still need some help with breathing and monitors and any medicines/equipment in case of distress while on the move.
‘Ordinary people have been taking extraordinary actions to care for each other in this horrific situation.
‘Do you speak Russian? Can you make calls RIGHT NOW to find someone who can do a supplies drop-off at the Adonis maternity hospital in Kyiv?
‘Can you help track down an ambulance in Kyiv for transport of Moishe and Lenny from Adonis to a nearby hospital with more supplies/staff that has agreed to take them in? WE NEED YOU.’
The couple explained that the hospital is running low on equipment needed to care for the babies – including clothes and preemie milk.
‘I talked to this pharmacy in the morning. By afternoon, when one of our contacts got there, it was already shelled and it was closed,’ Alex explained to the Today show.
They revealed in another Facebook post that the hospital was thankfully able to find some preemie milk for the babies after a ‘family member’ took supplies ‘on foot’ amid the ‘chaos.’
However, they said the hospital remained ‘unstable and dangerous.’ They also voiced their fears that the surrogate, Katya – who is currently watching over the babies – may want to leave soon.
‘The twins cannot cannot be moved without medical support. They still need some help with breathing and monitors in case of distress while on the move,’ their mom wrote on Facebook
‘We need your help to bring them home safely,’ she added. ‘Ordinary people have been taking extraordinary actions to care for each other in this horrific situation’
Coming together: The couple has also set up a GoFundMe page, where they have raised more than $50,000
Staying positive: Despite the battle that the tiny babies have already had to face, Alex said he feels hopeful that his sons will make it home
Fighters: ‘To have them born in a war zone – among all this devastation – feels incredibly hopeful,’ he said
‘In our mind, the surrogate, she gave birth to our children, but she’s not beholden to them. What if she decides she needs to be with her family and save herself?’ Alex said to the Washington Post. ‘We need to find someone who can take care of the babies.’
The couple has set up a GoFundMe page, where they have raised more than $50,000. But they are calling on the help from the United States government.
‘Just get our babies out,’ Alex begged, while speaking to the Today show. ‘Or, if that’s not possible, at least to Lviv, somewhere westward, where they would be safe.’
During the pregnancy, Katya began to develop a condition where her body ‘attacked’ the babies due to an Rh-incompatibility.
Then, when she went into labor early, she had to spend three hours in an ambulance due to traffic from military vehicles.
‘For those three hours, it was agony. We’re thinking, “Is this three hours going to be the end of our babies?”‘ Alex recalled to the Washington Post.
Despite the battle that the tiny babies have already had to face, Alex feels hopeful that his sons will make it home.
‘We have these two lives born, and their own journey into this world was so difficult, and all of a sudden to have them born in a war zone – among all this devastation – feels incredibly hopeful,’ he concluded.
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