ATLANTA — As the war continues, a couple in Atlanta is desperately trying to bring their twins home. The pair were born prematurely by a surrogate in Ukraine.
With Ukrainian airspace closed amid Russian invasion, and the boys requiring special medical equipment, their parents tell 11Alive's La’Tasha Givens their journey home depends on what happens next in this war.
The boys' story of survival is already remarkable even at just four days old, surviving preterm labor and then an airstrike near the hospital.
Now they're breathing on their own, but are still trapped in a warzone.
Alex Spektor and his partner Irma Nunez found a surrogate from his home country to deliver their twin boys Moishe and Lenny.
"We fled from the Soviet Union as Jewish refugees, so coming back to Kyiv was really symbolic that my children would be born in the city where I was born," Spektor said.
After their surrogate, Katia, suffered complications, doctors delivered the boys at 32 weeks on Feb. 25 — just one day after Russia invaded Ukraine.
"Our surrogate mother was moved to a hospital outside of Kyiv," Spektor said. "A shell rocket fell into it a couple of days ago, and she had to be taken in an ambulance and she got stuck in military traffic on the way there."
The couple said for hours, they had no idea if Katia would make it to the hospital.
"Then all of a sudden my phone rings and it’s a video call, and she says, 'you have two sons.' So thank God, it was amazing for us," he said.
The bouncing baby boys survived. Both are named after Spektor's grandparents.
"They’re both are from Kyiv. They both fought in World War II and for me, they’re these big heroes and I wanted my little boys to share some of their legacy," Spektor said.
The boys are now breathing on their own, but they're still not in the clear with war around them.
"Until this morning, they were held in a hospital, which did not have a bomb shelter, so they had to — during the air raids — be taken out of the whole hospital and run across the street to a church," he explained.
Doctors told the couple the boys should be strong enough to travel in two weeks. They'll have to make their way to Poland first, then to fly in Atlanta from there.
"They appear to be safe, as safe as one can be," Spektor said.
He and Nunez said when the boys are older, they'll tell them the story of their survival and raise them to serve their birth country.
"I’ll make sure that they go back and help rebuild once they grow," he said.
Spektor added that the war is horrible, but the solidarity of the people is amazing. The surrogate is a single mother with a 6-year-old son. The couple said they consider her son their son too and they are trying to get all of them here to Atlanta as one family.