'At night I look up at the stars and cry for my husband': Ukrainian surrogate in Ireland 

Ivanna Holub was rescued from Ukraine when the Irish woman whose babies she'd carried organised two Scottish gardeners to rescue her. She tells her extraordinary story

Cathy Wheatley, centre, with her twins Ted and Elsie, 2, who were born by surrogacy in Ukraine to Ivanna Holub, with her three children Oleg 5, right, Sergii ,7 and baby Ludmilla, 6 months at the Wheatley home in Co Wicklow. Picture: Moya Nolan

The moment the Russians started bombing the airport near her home was the moment Ivanna Holub finally realised she had to take her children out of Ukraine.

The massive explosion came just 15 minutes after her mother called her at 5am on February 24 and hysterically uttered words she never believed she would hear: “It’s war!”.

The 30-year-old mother-of-three had defied the pleas of Cathy Wheatley to get out of the country.

The two women have been close friends since Ms Holub agreed in 2019 to be a surrogate mother for Ms Wheatley and her husband Keith and to carry and then give birth to the couple’s now two-year-old twins, Ted and Elsie.

But after the airport was bombed, she finally realised she would have to take up Mrs Wheatley’s offer of help to get her out of Ukraine.

Ms Holub said: “I didn’t know what to think when my mother rang me in an excited voice to tell me ‘It’s war!’.

Ivanna Holub and Cathy Wheatley: The two women have been close friends since Mrs Holub agreed in 2019 to be a surrogate mother for Ms Wheatley and her husband Keith and to carry and then give birth to the couple’s now two-year-old twins, Ted and Elsie. Picture: Moya Nolan

“Literally 15 minutes later, I heard an explosion. It was our airfield! Up to that very point, I just could not accept that we would end up being invaded. I quickly turned on the TV and the news was all about the war, and I had no idea.

“I just couldn’t believe what I was watching, and suddenly I got very worried. I wasn’t worried for myself, but I was suddenly very worried for my children. To this day, I still ask myself: why does Russia want to murder, rape, rob and destroy everything in their path in Ukraine?.” 

As the Irish Examiner reported recently, Ms Wheatley was able to rescue Ms Holub and her three children thanks to the help of two landscape gardeners from Scotland.

After she heard Joe McCarthy and Gary Taylor had rescued Carlow medical student Racheal Diyaolu from the city of Sumy, Ms Wheatley got in touch with them and they agreed to help.

First they picked up Ms Holub, and her son Oleg, 5, and her five-month-old Luda, from their home in Myrhorod, near the central Ukrainian city of Poltava. They drove to her mother’s house about 200km away in the city of Cherkasy, to collect her son Sergii, 7, who had been visiting her.

Once they picked him up, the plan was to head to the Romanian border and meet Ms Wheatley, a spokesperson for the Irish Families Through Surrogacy advocacy group, near the south-eastern Romanian town of Galati.

But at the last minute, fighting broke out in Odessa and the plan was then changed to get the Holub family out via Siret, more than 370km away.

They eventually made it to a refugee camp near the Romanian border and the women were reunited.

The Holubs are now living with Wheatleys at their Co Wicklow home.

Of the rescue, Ms Holub recalled: “A car drove up to my house, a man got out and he introduced himself as Joe and his friend as Gary.

“As well as the two children, I had packed up my entire life into a small suitcase and a children’s shoulder bag.

“We got into the car quickly and drove off. We were driving through areas that had been destroyed by fighting.

I’ll never forget the horrors I saw. Joe and Gary are superheroes and also very good — and fast — drivers.

“They also distracted the children by giving them sweets and cracking jokes. I was completely consumed by fear but I couldn't let my children see that, I was really worried about being fired on by armed men in civilian cars.

“Thankfully, we got to my mother’s house safely, I hugged her and my son so tightly when I saw them.

I still feel my mother's hug, and how tightly she hugged me when I said goodbye to her. It just breaks my heart!” 

She said being reunited with Mrs Wheatley in the refugee camp near the Romanian border was an end to “an eternity of stress”.

“I was so overwhelmed after everything when I ran up to her and hugged her,” she said.

“I had so many mixed emotions — of sorrows and joys, and I just burst into tears.” 

Ivanna Holub describes her new home with the Wheatleys as 'one big crazy family'. Picture: Moya Nolan

She will be forever grateful for the fact that her two boys are now settled in a new school and already making friends.

And she laughs as she describes her new home with the Wheatleys as “one big crazy family” who play together and eat at the same table.

“But my sons will never forget the cold basement where we had to hide from the explosions,” she adds.

“And at night, I go out into Cathy’s back yard and look up at the stars in the sky and just cry because my husband Yuri and the rest of my family are in Ukraine.”