'Our Ukrainian miracle'

MUM CASSANDRA REFLECTS ON THE RACE TO BRING HER SURROGATE-BORN BABY HOME

- Courtney Greatrex

As new mum Cassandra Martin helped her little girl blow out the candles on her birthday cake, it was a bittersweet moment. She was delighted to be celebrating the first birthday of her miracle daughter, Evelyn Hope. But it also marked nearly 12 months since they narrowly avoided being caught up in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where they collected their daughter who was born via surrogate in Kyiv. It became a race against time to get out of the country before troops descended on the capital.

“Celebrating her first birthday was quite emotional,” Cassandra, 34, tells WHO. “There has always been conflict and disputes with Russia, but in the days before it happened, the locals never believed they would invade. I never thought I would be getting my child in a war torn country.”

Cassandra was born with a condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome, meaning she does not have ovaries or a womb. “I knew from an early stage that I wasn’t able to ever carry a child to full pregnancy,” she shares.

It meant that when the time came to start a family, she and her husband Ben, 33, knew that they would require the help of an egg donor and surrogate.