Travel restrictions mean several babies born via surrogate are unable to be with their new parents in Ukraine.
Travel restrictions mean several babies born via surrogate are unable to be with their new parents in Ukraine.
Side by side in simple steel cots in a Kyiv hotel room lie more 50 newborn babies, mewling at the world as nurses comfort and care for them.
But these babies aren't abandoned or unwanted. Far from it. They are the product of surrogacy arrangements with Ukrainian mothers who gave birth to them on behalf of couples desperate for children.
The problem is those couples cannot travel to the former Soviet republic because of travel restrictions imposed to help stem the spread of coronavirus.
The Telegraph has discovered a similar picture across several countries where surrogacy has become a way for women to earn desperately needed money by giving birth on behalf of more affluent families.
As well as Ukraine these include Georgia, the US, Canada, Mexico and Colombia.
Travel bans have now left an unknown number of intended parents across the world separated from the babies they have longed for, worried about missing out on those vital early bonding experiences or even fearful of ever seeing them at all.
The situation is understood to be particularly difficult in Ukraine and Georgia, where dozens of babies born since lockdown were put in place are now seven weeks old and in desperate need of stable parenting.
Maria's son Kaloyan was born on April 17, a month after the border closed - meaning she was not present at the birth and has been unable to travel from her home Galicia, northern Spain, to be united with him.
"It's very difficult," she told The Telegraph. "I've been counting the days since he was born and I'm very anxious about him and how he is. I just want to be with him."
With the Spanish government, which is opposed to surrogacy, unwilling to help facilitate any journey by Maria to Ukraine, she has had to pay a nanny 2500 euros a month (NZ$4550 ) to care for Kaloyan. That is on top of the 40,000 euros fee she paid to an agency to arrange the surrogate birth.
"All I can do is wait for travel restrictions to be lifted or to be allowed into the country under special humanitarian measures," said Maria, who moved to Spain from Bulgaria 20 years ago. "In the meantime, the nanny sends me pictures of my son. But it's not the same. I want to be with him and hold him."
Some parents have been lucky, managing to get into Ukraine before the barriers went up on international travel in March. Others, including couples from the US and Australia, have made it through after a complex overland journey taking as much as nine hours from Minsk, in Belarus.
But now they cannot leave with their child until restrictions are lifted.
One firm, the BioTexCom clinic, which arranges surrogacy births in Ukraine where the procedure is legal, is caring for more 50 surrogate babies who cannot be collected.
Surrogate mothers working with the firm receive a fee of about £12,500 (NZ$25,500) - which in this impoverished country could buy you a house - to give birth on behalf of intended parents from as far afield as the United States, China, Britain, Sweden and Ireland.
The clinic released a video showing a row of plastic cots with dozens of infants, in the middle of the hotel conference room.
Albert Tochilovsky, the clinic's founder, told the Telegraph that recording that shocking video with the dozens of babies in one room was a "cry for help" after he had spent weeks talking to desperate parents who have not been able to get their children back because of Ukraine's closed borders.
"I have only one task: to make sure that those mothers don't get upset and don't cry when they talk to me," he said.
The eldest child in the clinic's custody is three months old; their intended parents from China are still barred from entering Ukraine.
The clinic, which typically oversees more than 300 surrogate births a year, is one of dozens in Ukraine, but the overall number is hard to come by.
Tochilovsky's publicity stunt has got several Ukrainian officials to push the Ukrainian foreign ministry to expedite the travel requests of the babies' parents.
In recent weeks the parents of 16 babies have managed to make it to Ukraine, despite the travel restrictions.
The parents were then placed in quarantine in Kyiv and were allowed to take their newborn children only after that.
Several British couples have secured permission to travel to Ukraine and already got their babies, according to Tochilovsky, who wouldn't share broader statistics, citing privacy concerns
But others can only wait and hope.
Tochilovsky opposes calls by some Ukrainian politicians to ban surrogate pregnancies for foreign couples, saying that most of his clients have spent "20 to 30 years going to fertility clinics ... now this emergency is pushing their dream away" and says he is ready to argue with his critics when the children go back to their parents: "Let's help those kids first and then we talk about other things."
Surrogacy has become a global phenomenon. In 2012, the industry was worth an estimated £4.7 billion a year.
But the religious and cultural sensitivities around surrogacy mean many intended parents are finding it hard to get help from their own authorities to travel to the country where they're babies have been born.
Growing Families, an international not for profit group bringing together surrogates, donors and parents, told the Daily Telegraph it had been contacted by hundreds of couples desperate to be united with their surrogate babies.
Sam Everingham, its global director, called the situation "a nightmare", adding: "A number of parents are too scared to travel, many are unable to and there are many others where one parent only makes the journey. As a result there are dozens of infants which remain under the care of maternity hospitals, surrogates or home nurses."
Growing Families says countries such as France, Spain, China, Poland and Germany are refusing to assist their citizens with diplomatic requests to travel. It knows of several intended parents from China who have been unable to travel to the US to collect their babies.
Everingham called for more cooperation between governments to ensure the welfare of vulnerable newborns is not forgotten amid the global coronavirus panic.
"It is an anxious time for many," he said. "The immense changes in access to countries currently is putting the futures of hundreds of newborns at risk."
