Anna Timco is this mother’s name. Her apartment was shaking with hours of labor pains to deliver the baby as Russia bombed her hometown. Anna Timchenko was terrified. She and her husband were trapped in the apartment without electricity, running water or a doctor.
Bucha, a small town about 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) from the capital Kiev, has been the target of relentless bombardment since the beginning of the war.
Twenty-one-year-old Anna had previously taken care of the ground floor of their apartment with her husband and brother. But when the power went out and the heat went out, the basement sank into darkness and it was freezing cold.
Anna’s husband, Volodymyr, was alone in the world about staying in Bucha or trying to escape. Eventually they decided to get out of the car and leave the apartment. They had to reverse their car when they heard a Russian military convoy approaching them.
“We later decided to stay in the apartment,” Anna said. “I preferred to give birth at home, not on a dusty ground floor. I had difficulty breathing, my lungs hurt.”
On March 7, when she was in labor, she called neighbors for help. They agreed to come, but none of them had the experience of having babies.
Anna’s neighbor Viktoria Zabrodskaya, 49, said they did not know what to do if something went wrong.
They lit the room with candles and the only bottle of water that had cooled.
“I never thought the baby would be born under such dangerous conditions,” Anna says. “It’s amazing. I did not know anything because it was my first child.” She says.
Disappointed, Anna’s neighbors tried to contact the medical staff, but the phone signal was weak. Eventually they were able to contact a gynecologist in Bucha after receiving a signal from the balcony. He agreed to come but did not appear.
Later that day, he sent a message with an apology, explaining that he had been stopped by a Russian patrol who had broken into his phone.
Under these circumstances, Anna’s neighbors arranged for the baby to be born. Only one of them (Victoria) had any medical specialization.
“We were scared when the baby’s head came out,” Victoria says. “She was blue, and we did not know what to do. Then Irina gently turned the baby’s head and she came out. She did not cry at first – we started beating her, then she cried, and we all cheered.”
Husband Volodymyr sheds tears for baby Alyssa, who was born on March 8, International Women’s Day.
Two days later, Bucha and her husband finally decided to leave with their newborn, as they could not decide whether to leave the evacuation corridor agreed upon by the Ukrainian government and the Russian Defense Ministry. They tried to contact different people to find out if the road was safe and downloaded maps to their phones.
Anna and Volodymyr, fleeing Bucha, saw the devastation caused by the Russian attacks.
The next day, 21 cars left the city for Kiev. Victoria, who helped Anna give birth, drove to the front of the convoy, wrapped in a white flag around the mop mounted on her car, and marked “Children.”
“On the way we saw horrible scenes,” Anna says. “I never thought I would see such things in real life – I had only seen them in the movies before. Bodies had fallen on the road and houses had been destroyed. Russian tanks had barreled on the road and stopped moving. .
A few hours later, the evacuees safely passed all the Russian checkpoints and arrived in Kiev – from where they took separate routes.
“I could not stop laughing when we went out,” says Anna. “I could not believe we managed to escape.”
Anna enjoys motherhood and her parents are looking forward to introducing their new granddaughter. But many of her relatives have now left the country, and she and her husband cannot leave – Anna says she still does not have full protection.
“All my thoughts are with what is going on in [Bucha] and the rest of the country,” she says. “It’s unbelievable but we hope to be back home soon.”
Photo courtesy of Anna Timchenko. News from BBC News
