Heartbreak for parents of babies caught in Ukraine crossfire

It should have been one of their happiest moments. Instead, this couple found themselves running for their lives in Kyiv.

It should have been one of the happiest moments of their lives but instead Michelle and John McFadden found themselves running for their lives as Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv.

The two Irish nurses from Donegal travelled to the Ukrainian capital last Sunday expecting to pick up their surrogate son but were forced to flee as the Russia military intensified its push into the city.

News Corp Australia came across the pair as they trudged the final steps across the Ukraine border into Poland after a horror 40km walk to get away from the war.

Michelle and John McFadden’s hopes of becoming surrogate parents have been dashed. Picture: Charles Miranda

Their surrogate son was due to be born any day but they had to make the difficult “fight or flight decision” to leave, with another son back in Ireland.

“We tried to get out on Thursday but we travelled 20 miles in more than three hours and in that time air raid sirens rang out and everyone got out of their cars and started running, everyone was crying, everybody was worried just trying to figure out where the shells were going to land,” Michelle recounted.

“We heard them falling and exploding but not near us but then on Friday it just got crazy with bombs falling about us and they shook the car, it was crazy.

“It was really scary, swear to God we haven’t slept or anything for a couple of days because our heart was in our mouths and specially with the language barrier you don’t know where to ask to be safe you know.”

Michelle was diagnosed with cervical cancer after the birth of her first son 10 years ago so froze her embryos to have a surrogate child that she now doesn’t know when she will see.

“We are not sure how it is going to happen now. There are six babies to be born in the hospital in Kyiv from Irish couples now so we will all try and get our babies together, so we will hire nannies and drivers and bring them to the border, that’s the only way I think,” she said.

John said it was a difficult decision.

“We can’t go back, we can’t do that again. The confusion, tanks on the street it was like something out of the movies it really was and we were in the movie.”

Originally published as Heartbreak for parents of babies caught in Ukraine crossfire