A woman taking refuge in Britain is battling to save her IVF baby dream after being forced to leave a frozen embryo in wartorn Ukraine.
Iryna Litvinova, 37, longs to be a mum and wants to defy Vladimir Putin, whose bombs forced her to leave her home city of Kharkiv.
She had one embryo left from an IVF cycle and managed to transport it to safety in Kyiv before heading here.
But the war is preventing her from being able to access the embryo. Her husband Sergey, 36, is back home, as men aged 18-60 are not allowed to leave the country unless there are exceptional circumstances.
There is no way of knowing when – or where – they will be reunited, let alone resume their bid to have a family.
But Iryna, who has suffered the anguish of a stillbirth, has new hope – to get Sergey’s frozen sperm transported 1,750 miles to the UK to start fertility treatment here.
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It will cost around £5,000 in shipping and clinical fees – and Iryna’s UK host has set up a fundraising page.
She tells the Sunday Mirror: “Putin’s war is not just about killing and physical destruction. He is also destroying hopes and plans.
“All the time this war rages, my chances of motherhood are diminishing. The clinic has said because of the war there are staffing issues and there aren’t the correct protocols in place to allow the release of the genetic material.
“Now the plan is for Sergey to go to a clinic which has the right licence to be able to transport sperm and find a courier that can get it out of the country and to the UK.”
Iryna, who suffers low levels of oestrogen and progesterone, was undergoing IVF in Kharkiv when Russia invaded.
Her first round of IVF, costing £2,500 in 2016, ended in heartbreak when the couple lost a daughter in a stillbirth at 35 weeks.
Three more attempts were unsuccessful.
Of her daughter, Iryna said: “I had a C-section and when I woke up the doctors would not tell me what had happened. Sergey came in and I realised from his face we’d lost her. We cried together but I felt guilty, that it was my fault. I never got to see or hold my baby, and part of me died that day. It wasn’t until last year that I could talk about it without crying.
“Now war has brought terrible loss again, the loss of life as we knew it.
“We had a settled, happy life before the Russians invaded.
“I grew up on my parents’ farm outside Kharkiv, and Sergey and I met in 2004 through friends. We married in 2011.
“We’re very happy. He’s my best friend. We loved our apartment and going to the cinema together.
“Now all that is gone. The war was knocking on our door. Our apartment was damaged by bombing and then we heard about the Bucha massacre.
“My husband said to me, ‘I can’t protect you here. If I have to join the army, I’ll be calmer if you’re safe’.
“Our life had been turned upside down. It was hard even to do normal things like get up and brush your teeth.
“Eating was just about survival. The war is totally out of our hands, the same as with the stillbirth. I felt powerless and had the feeling I was dead again.”
But after arriving in England, Iryna has begun to piece her life together.
She adds: “After the stillbirth and three unsuccessful attempts, I was worried about trying again.
“Even if I became pregnant, I was terrified of losing my unborn child. If that happened, I wasn’t sure if I could survive physically or mentally. But war has shown me I do have the strength to try for a baby again.
“Even though Sergey is not here, and we don’t have enough money, and everything is so uncertain, I’ve realised IVF is a thread that can give me hope. It means life.”
Iryna is living in Rye, East Sussex, with British host Amy Maynard, 42. She arrived in April.
Her sister Marina fled here too and is in Dartford, Kent, with her husband and two children.
Marina’s husband was allowed to leave Ukraine because their home was occupied by Russian soldiers and then destroyed.
Host Amy set up a GoFundMe campaign – currently standing at £3,000 – and is helping Iryna to research IVF clinics. Meanwhile, Sergey – now running a car rental firm in Dnipro – has discovered he can transport his sperm in a dry-ice container for £1,550.
He and Iryna FaceTime each other every night and she checks in daily with her parents, who refuse to leave their homeland. Meanwhile, Iryna is taking English lessons and learning about the UK tax system so she can get an accountancy job.
She adds: “The future is so uncertain. I don’t know when I will be reunited with my husband. We may be 1,750 miles apart, but this hope we may still have a baby together is what keeps us united in spirit.”
Speaking from Ukraine, Sergey said: “I miss Iryna so much and it hurts to be so far from her. But it was our decision that this would be the best way forward for our family.
“We have lost so much – our home, our livelihoods. But the thought of having IVF has given my wife Iryna the strength and hope to continue.
“I’ll do everything I can to make it possible and if we find out our family will grow, it will also give me strength. I’ll do my best to be close to my wife, be that in England or Ukraine.”
- To help raise £5,000 visit Go Fund Me.
