Consider This from NPR - The Harrowing Journey To Get Premature American Twins From Kyiv To The U.S.

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

Twin babies Lenny and Moishe were born via surrogate in Ukraine, just as Russia invaded the country. Their parents live in Chicago and had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of their new sons.Rescuers exfiltrated the babies, dodging Russian artillery fire and driving through a snowstorm before finally arriving at a Polish hospital, where new father Alex "Sasha" Spektor met the boys for the first time. But a more difficult journey for the family was just beginning. NPR's Ari Shapiro followed up with Spektor and his partner, Irma Nuñez, as they navigated the complicated bureaucratic process of getting their twins from Poland to the United States.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu forward. About two months ago, I met a man in a Polish border town named Alex Spector. He goes by Sasha. Sasha had flown all the way from Chicago to meet his new sons, twin baby boys Lenny and Moysha. You're Sasha. Oh my god. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. The twins are already in. Lenny and Moysha were born prematurely to a Ukrainian surrogate just as Russia started its war on Ukraine. Getting the boys out of Kiev They're just amazing. the twins arrived after midnight at the Polish hospital where Sasha met them for the first time.

I spoke to him outside a few minutes later. They're just amazing. It's just that I didn't... Because in the photographs, they look so big. But in the LA, they're just... Oh, my God. It's just insane. It was like a storm.

A winter storm. A snowstorm. The war didn't want to let them go, but we got them out. The war didn't want to let them go, but we got them out. The war didn't want to let them go. Thanks for the good people of Ukraine. The last time we heard from new father Sasha. All right, so this is for Lenin Moshe and for all the wonderful people that helped to bring him here.

He said he was ready to start a new chapter of his life. The real life begins now. And this was the surreal life. You know, the twins, I had to look at them and be saturated with their presence. A few days after the twins were rescued, Sasha's partner Irma flew from Chicago to Poland to meet the twins for the first time herself. The new parents were preparing to bring Lenny and Moishe back home to America, and so when I left Poland in early March, I expected that the family would be in Chicago soon after. So I was shocked to get a text from Sasha recently

saying that he, Irma, and the twins were still in Poland. You thought that getting the kids out of the war zone would be the hardest part. Right, of course, yeah. But this is harder. Consider this. For babies Lenny and Moishe, getting out of bureaucratic limbo was even more complicated than getting out of a war. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro.

It's Thursday, May 5th. mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. Lenny and Moishe's mother arrived in Poland just as I was leaving, so the first time I spoke with her was just last week. She sat in a hotel room in the Polish city of Zezów, not far from the hospital where the twins have spent the last two months. My name is Irma Nunez. I'm Sasha's partner and I'm mother to Moishe and Lenny, and I'm going to cry saying that. It's been a very long journey. It's not that the kids have health problems. Even though they were born prematurely, they're healthy now. Good to travel. So here's what happened. Irma had stayed in Chicago to get the family's legal paperwork in order. She landed in Poland about a week after Sasha.

And Irma, did you go straight to the hospital to see the boys? No, we arrived late at night. But the very next day, that was the first place we got. We have to book an appointment to see our kids like a day in advance. And back then there were COVID protocols. Right. So do you remember the first time you saw them oh yeah yeah i described it to a friend as uh you know like marcia brady

when she falls in love on the brady bunch and she puts her school books in the refrigerator it's like i finally understood what people mean when they say like I was on cloud nine. I was just floating like everything else disappeared. And it was just amazing. I actually didn't cry that day because it was just this blast of like unreal happiness. The hospital only let them experience that happiness with their twins for one hour each day. Sasha and Irma spent the rest of the time fighting bureaucracy. So eventually the hospital said, we need to prove your paternity in order to discharge the kids too.

But how do we, and then American Embassy in Warsaw said, in order for us to give the kids passports, we need you to bring the kids to Warsaw. So there was this wonderful catch-22, where in order to release the kids, the hospital needed passports. To get the passports, we had to take the kids to Warsaw. The case even went to court, where Sasha says the judge was less than helpful. They wouldn't really tell us what exactly we need. They would just say, we still don't have all the documents.

Eventually, officials said they needed to see birth certificates that were in Ukraine. Remember, these kids had been rescued from a hospital while the city of Kiev was under Russian assault. And so Sasha actually left the Polish city of Zhezhov to cross back over the border and retrieve the documents from the Ukrainian city of Lviv. Can you just tell me about the moment you realized you would have to cross the border and go into Ukraine to solve this problem? You know, the funny thing is that for me, just sitting in Zhezhov without able to do anything was just the worst thing possible. But in order to collect all the proper documents to go to Ukraine, it was another huge task. When I recorded this conversation with them on Friday, Sasha and Irma were in a hotel room in Zhezhov. Sasha said it was his 14th hotel since he'd arrived in Poland two months ago for what he thought would be a short trip.

You know, today was the hardest. Today was just excruciating. Because at this point, we submitted everything that can possibly be submitted. And when I called the court this morning, the secretary said, the decision has been made. The judge has to sign it. And then we'll fax it to the hospital. And I said, but what's the decision? And she says, I'm sorry, but I cannot tell you.

Where do things stand right now? They actually, the things are actually, well, the two boys are laying down. They're there in the room with you. You want to see? They're there in the hotel room. I'll show you. there in the room with you yeah you want to see they're there in the hotel room oh in two months this is the first time you've actually had them in your own space not in a hospital that's right that's right i suddenly feel like i should be talking quietly so i don't wake them up that's what i was doing but they're not no, we have to speak loudly. So they learn.

They have been living in a little nursery for the past two months. And the nurses don't keep quiet. They don't. And they play pop music and drop things. And there's monitors beeping all the time. I didn't realize this whole time we've been talking, they are right there behind you, sleeping. Yeah. That's amazing. It is amazing, yeah. You know, when we came in, I dropped my bag

and I thought, oh my god, what an idiot, because they're sleeping. But I'm still in the mood of not knowing what to do. But also, these babies were born in a war zone, so. Oh, is one of them crying? I see Irma rushing off. He coughed.

He coughed. I'm a mother in the steel magnolia, Sabine. You just stand up and make sure they're breathing. Sasha was actually born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union. His family came to the U.S. as Jewish refugees. He says this experience has made him feel came to the U.S. as Jewish refugees. He says this experience has made him feel closer to the place of his birth. He and Irma have used the connections

they've made to create a network. They call it Ukraine Trust Chain. We benefited so much from individuals who are willing to just step up and do something. And it's really incredible. And being here in Zhezhev, we've also met a lot of other people who are experiencing difficult things, and we're trying to connect people who we trust with other people we trust and help build these networks. They have teams of volunteers in the U.S. and Ukraine providing a pipeline of medical supplies, baby formula, food, and other essentials to people in the war. And so my friend and his team in Chicago are getting donations, and they found a way to immediately channel it to the volunteers. And the volunteers are doing the hard work, of course. So that conversation was last Friday. And Monday?

We just feel very lucky. Lucky to be home. Sasha called me from Chicago. He said Lenny and Moishe cried the entire flight from Poland. Yeah, everybody was very helpful. You just have to say a magic word. These kids were born in Ukraine on the second day of the war, and everybody just goes out of their way to help. The American pediatrician, who'd had months of consultations by phone,

finally met the twins for the first time Monday. She said they're both good babies. And now Sasha and Irma are surrounded by family and friends to help them. There's an army of people who love them. Very different from the army that surrounded them on the first day of their lives in Kyiv. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.