For your entire 9 months she had carried the baby, her nation had been below assault, her life — and her son’s — always in danger.
But right here he was, slightly below six kilos and wholesome. The dad and mom named him Serhii. He was their fourth little one, the little brother their 7-year-old son had been ready for.
But the baby’s father would by no means have the possibility to satisfy him.
About 2 a.m. on Wednesday, as Kamianetska had simply completed nursing the kid and laid him right down to sleep in the crib beside her, a rocket crashed into the hospital’s maternity ward. The hospital partitions got here crumbling down, trapping Kamianetska and her toddler in the rubble.
They had been the one sufferers in the ward that night time. Rescuers pulled the mom out of the rubble alive, her legs scraped and bloodied. The solely particular person killed was baby Serhii.
One of the youngest casualties of the conflict, 2-day-old Serhii was among the many greater than 440 Ukrainian youngsters killed and a whole bunch extra wounded as far as a end result of Russia’s invasion, in response to the Ukrainian prosecutor normal’s workplace. The boy didn’t dwell lengthy sufficient to be given a beginning certificates.
As rescue employees searched by means of what remained of the maternity ward, they advised Kamianetska they couldn’t discover a baby.
They discovered solely a doll, they mentioned, mendacity face down on the bottom.
“That’s my son!” she shouted.
In the midst of conflict, a new baby brother
Kamianetska had at all times wished to have a fourth little one — a boy, she hoped. Her 7-year-old son, who had grown up with solely sisters, was already gathering his toy toolbox to point out his new little brother. He yearned to be a tractor driver like his father and couldn’t wait to share his child-size tractor with the boy.
The dad and mom, who spoke to The Washington Post this week, had every part prepared for Serhii: The crib, the stroller, the garments. Kamianetska and the kids’s father, Vitalii Podlianov, had been making ready to maneuver throughout the road in their small rural village to a larger home in the spring, to have extra room for his or her rising household.
The couple had discovered they had been anticipating a baby in late February, simply as Russian troops had been starting their assault on Ukraine. As hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, many ladies and youngsters, fled the nation, Kamianetska and her household stayed in their village, Novosolone, in the Zaporizhzhia area. This was their house, the place the place they’d raised their three different youngsters and the place the remainder of their household lived.
But it was additionally a area with a identify now acknowledged around the globe, Zaporizhzhia, the location of Europe’s largest nuclear energy plant and a doubtless location for a new Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Missile strikes had change into more and more frequent in the realm close to the hospital. Before November, the city hadn’t skilled any strikes, its mayor mentioned; this month it’s been struck on three days. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday blamed the maternity ward strike on “the terrorist state.” Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Kamianetska lived nearly an hour’s drive from the entrance line, but by some means the conflict felt far sufficient away. “The explosions in the distance didn’t worry me,” she mentioned. But as she ready for Serhii’s arrival, they inched nearer and nearer to her city.
She had seen the pictures of bloodied pregnant girls on stretchers outdoors a Mariupol maternity hospital — pictures that shocked the world early on in the conflict.
But on the night time earlier than her baby was born, her solely concern was ensuring she may get to the hospital safely. Podlianov had pushed her to remain in the house of a relative in the city the place she deliberate to present beginning, which was nearer to the hospital than her house. He then returned to their village, to work and care for his or her different youngsters.
Early Monday morning, Kamianetska referred to as an ambulance to hurry her to the hospital.
The baby got here after solely two contractions. He was born at 8:20 a.m., lower than 20 inches lengthy.
A maternity ward crumbles
It was previous 1 a.m. when she heard the primary loud crash — a strike in a completely different half of city. Then got here the blast.
The rocket crushed the brick partitions of the second-floor maternity ward, sending it tumbling onto the clinic beneath it, the place a trapped physician cried for assist, she recalled.
A bit of the concrete ceiling landed on prime of Kamianetska, who was mendacity in mattress in solely a nightgown. But she remained fixated on reaching for Serhii’s crib.
She screamed for assist, as she tried desperately to raise off the items of concrete to succeed in the baby. She recalled her lungs crammed with smoke and dirt.
She managed to raise herself up and doing and lunge towards the crib. The mom was horrified to see it was empty. The baby had been launched from his mattress in the blast.
Kamianetska grabbed her telephone, utilizing its mild to seek for the toddler as she walked by means of the particles in her naked ft.
The moments that adopted are all a bit of a blur: The rescue employees pulling her out of the rubble by means of a window; nurses pulling the shrapnel off her legs; the telephone name to her mom, telling her the maternity ward had been hit by a rocket.
What she remembers, vividly, was her personal screaming, her pleas for her son.
About 15 individuals gathered in the chilly cemetery Thursday because the priest approached the white lace-trimmed field in entrance of them. He mentioned a prayer and positioned a cross contained in the tiny coffin — lower than three ft lengthy — the place Serhii lay, lined in a blue blanket. The baby’s eyes had been closed, his face nonetheless lined with small scrapes.
The funeral had come collectively shortly, simply a day after he died. The dad and mom didn’t wish to carry the coffin into their house, the place their different youngsters would see it, in order that they wanted to bury the baby as quickly as they might.
Serhii’s older siblings all stayed house, taking part in in the entrance yard, as their members of the family rushed to the cemetery. The youngsters knew their youngest brother wouldn’t be coming house in spite of everything, however the dad and mom had not but defined why.
Wearing thick coats in near-freezing temperatures, relations arrived carrying flowers and toys — a stuffed tiger and pink girl bug and a model new toddler-size automobile. Kamianetska wore a black winter jacket. On the again had been the phrases: “Everything will be fine. It will be even better every day.”
Kamianetska stared longingly into the field, lurching towards it as she wailed. Her mom and sister-in-law grabbed her by the arms, serving to her stay standing. She leaned over into the coffin and gently kissed the baby.
Then, after the priest had sprinkled water on the coffin, two males rigorously lowered it into the bottom. The sound of shelling rumbled in the space because the members of the family sprinkled dust in the grave.
As males lined the casket, the mom recounted what occurred that night time.
“My room was completely destroyed,” she mentioned. “I was looking for the child in the rubble. … The child was just in the crib. I was thinking of changing him, and then this happened.”
Each of the relations hugged her, urging her to be sturdy. As most of them left, her mom gave Kamianetska recommendation on what to do along with her breast milk, now that she wouldn’t be nursing.
That night time, Kamianetska dreamed of her son. In the dream, he was hungry, and wished breakfast. So the next morning, she returned to the cemetery to carry him cookies and chocolate.
This time, she introduced the kids alongside to the grave, to satisfy their baby brother for the primary time.