A British couple who lived in Kyiv for seven weeks while waiting for a passport for their Ukraine-born baby has said it is a “huge relief” to be home in north London.
Ben and Alice Garratt waited nearly two months for Raphael’s travel documentation, becoming increasingly concerned when Foreign Office travel advice urged Britons to leave the country immediately amid the prospect of a Russian invasion.
They flew to the Ukrainian capital at the end of December after the surrogate birth of their son Raphael, and finally returned home to Queen’s Park on Tuesday morning after receiving emergency travel documents for their son.
“It’s great to be home,” Mr Garratt, who works in stakeholder engagement at London North Eastern Railway, told the PA news agency.
“It’s a huge relief, given the situation with Russia, to be away from that.
“And also great to be near our family and friends – all of Rafi’s grandparents were at our house when we got back, playing with him.”
Raphael was born thanks to the “very different surrogacy laws” in Ukraine that allow for a swifter IVF and surrogacy process.
Mr Garratt and his wife had planned to stay in Kyiv for a few months while they oversaw paperwork for Raphael, but were anxious to return home as tensions rose between Ukraine and Russia.
“The last couple days were quite hectic… we were getting emails from the embassy (in Kyiv) saying we need to leave the country, but weren’t being given any sense from (them) about how long it would take to get an emergency passport for Rafi,” Mr Garratt said.
After a video call with the British Embassy on Sunday morning, the couple were picking up an emergency passport for seven-week-old Raphael “within a few hours” thanks to support online and from their local MP, Tulip Siddiq.
The MP for Hampstead and Kilburn pushed Government ministers about the couple’s situation and celebrated their return home earlier this week.
“Thank you all so much for your concern and supportive messages about my constituents in Ukraine,” Ms Siddiq wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
“I’m very pleased to say that Ben and Alice have acquired their emergency travel documents and should be flying home tomorrow.”
The Garratts were on a flight to Warsaw, Poland, by Monday, as direct flights from Ukraine to the UK were fully booked.
“It was quite interesting taking a little baby through multiple airports and passport controls… he coped with it quite well,” Mr Garratt said.
Having arrived at Heathrow on Tuesday morning, the wait begins for Raphael’s permanent British passport, as well as a parental order for Mr and Mrs Garratt to become his parents under British law.
“I think it will take a bit of time, but it’s all done from the UK, so that makes things easier,” Mr Garratt said.
“If it was just me and Alice there, we would have been calmer, but we had to make sure we kept (Rafi) safe.
“We tried everything we could to make sure we got the attention that we thought was needed to get this piece of paper.”
Now safely in the UK, Mr Garratt said they are “loving” every moment with Raphael.
“As new parents, we don’t know quite what to expect and it’s also more tiring than imaginable – but we’re loving it,” he said.
“I’m on parental leave for a few months… in the back of my head, I think it’d be nice to maybe do some writing… (or I) might record some music.
“Or I might find that I’ve not got time for any of that and the closest I’m going to get to literature is reading children’s books, which is absolutely fine.”
