Bunker Babies
A Newborn’s First Rocket Attack
Are you safe?
typing…
“I’m safe. Ladies who can’t walk have to stay in room. They take babies to bunker.”
“Is Adelina in the bunker?”
typing…
“Yes.”
It was three o’clock in the morning. The air raid siren was my alarm. Again. This time was different, though. I was home alone with the boy. Momma was in the hospital. At 0745, she brought our precious daughter Adelina into this world.
At less than 24 hours old, my daughter was experiencing her first Russian rocket attack. Without her parents. In the bottom of the hospital. From the safety of the liquid life-giving womb to the safety of the concrete and steel belly of a bunker.
Welcome to the world, kid.
A world where Russia would like to eradicate you, and half of the people in the United States couldn’t care less.
I lay in my bed watching the Telegram updates. The rockets weren’t headed to the south. They struck somewhere in Kharkiv. I knew my daughter wouldn’t emerge from the bunker until the ‘all-clear’ alarm sounded through the oblast.
I was no longer Odesa Complacent; I was terrified. For the entire week before my wife gave birth, Odesa was under attack by Russian drones and rockets. We sat up every night huddled in the corridor of our apartment listening to air defense engage drones and rockets. Watching bright flashes outside of our window and counting the seconds until the explosions followed.
I cried.
The following day, I went in early to see my wife and the brand-new member of my brood. I had held my newborn daughter for a little less than an hour. My wife was in the post-op recovery room with several other mommas. Once she could walk to the toilet on her own two feet and pee, they took us to our private room and brought in our baby.
I sat my wife up in the bed and while she prepared herself to try and feed our princess, I finally got to hold her again. Her tiny head was in the palm of my hand. Her lips were making the sucking motion knowing that a meal may be close. She tried to open her eyes, and through the slits of her eyelids, I watched her eyes move from left to right. My heart crawled up into my throat.
I love you.
At noon, my wife made a request for some kefir, water, and told me to go get something to eat. In Ukraine, it’s an unspoken rule that if your pregnant wife wants something, she gets it, even if you have to steal the item. Apparently, the authorities will understand.
I was still operating under this premise plus, I was starving. I laid the baby back down in the hospital baby bed. I kissed my wife and walked one block from the hospital, ordered some shawarma, sat in the shade, and ate my lunch before I went to the store to pick up the water and kefir.
Midway through my wrap, the siren blared. I could feel the cortisol hit my veins. I texted my wife.
“All fine?”
typing…
“Come here”
I raced back to the room. My wife was sitting in the hallway.
“They took baby to Bunker.”
I leaned against the wall of the hospital. I thought about the maternity ward that had been struck by Russian missiles in Mariopul back in March of last year. My daughter was tucked safely away in the bunker below while her parents sat in a hallway four floors above her.
The rockets and drones that had been detected ended up in Kharkiv and Kyiv, not Odesa. We received the all-clear, and our baby was brought back up to us.
Later that night, the alarm sounded again. The hospital staff came and rounded us all up and ushered us down the hallway and into the elevator. We were ready this time.
Kind of.
I had brought our car seat to transport our little bunker baby into the basement. The bunker was well-lit, ventilated and had new beds in one of the rooms. There were about ten beds, at least twenty babies, and another twenty expectant moms.
There were two babies to a bed. As bunker noobs, I realized that we forgot a baby bunker bag with diapers, wipes, and other shit we might need depending on how long we would be in the bunker.
We were there for about three hours. The all-clear was given, and we slowly made our way back to our respective rooms for what was left of the night.
The next night was a rinse and repeat. This time, I packed a bunker bag and brought extras in case other noobs forgot their bags. There were quite a few women whose men were fighting on the front, so after I settled my wife and daughter, I went to help carry more babies down.
At this point, I started to feel my blood run hot.
After getting all the babies safely in the bunker, I sat in the bunker’s corridor just outside the room filled with newborns and tired mothers. There were a set of triplets just outside of the room with the beds. Their mother still couldn’t walk, so she stayed upstairs. I don’t know where the father was. I’ll assume he is defending the freedom and right to exist of these triplets.
Two of the babies laid back to back in the hospital baby carrier. The other lay by himself. The baby closest to me opened his eyes, and we stared at each other through the plastic glass.
I smiled. But inside, my blood boiled over.
I can’t even write here the anger I feel at the assault taking place on my country.
I wanted to sign up, hit the road, back to my previous trade of violence of action.
I wanted horrible things to happen to the button pushers that sent these drones and missiles that murdered civilians and children.
That night the Russians destroyed another food store. In total, for the month of July, the Russians destroyed over 200,000 tons of food that was to be exported. But hey, Putin’s not a bad guy.
We’re home now. We rented a parking space in the garage below our building. We parked the car there to have someplace safe and comfortable to hide out with our bunker baby and make memories.
