Locked Down and Pregnant With Someone Else's Baby
From Marie Claire This article is a partnership between Marie Claire and The Fuller Project. At 37 weeks pregnant, Arina* doesn't leave her Kiev apartment often. The pandemic ricocheting around the globe means the 28-year-old surrogate can't ride the now-closed subway or tram to the city center. To pass the time, she sticks to a daily routine of morning calisthenics, porridge, and TV in the three-bedroom apartment she shares with two other surrogates. Stranded on the 25th floor, in a white wallpapered apartment, facing another row of grey apartments, Arina leaves only to take short walks through the neighborhood or to sneak in an occasional ice cream run to the local supermarket. The Ukrainian mother of two hasn't seen her own children since early March. Two months ahead of her due date, Lotus, the Israel-registered surrogacy company that matched Arina with a foreign couple, wanted her to see their appointed doctor and to monitor the second-time surrogate's baby closely...