On February 24, everything turned upside down; the doctors were on edge, shaken because they did not understand what to do or how to go on.

But we have a responsibility to uphold. I also have two children I need to protect. But if I had left, what would have happened here? So I sent my children to a safe place and stayed behind to do my job. We have our vanguard here.

Some fled from Donetsk to Kharkiv in 2014, and now explosions caught up with them there, too. They ran to us, looking for shelter. We had to do everything with extra care so that the woman could go further abroad as soon as possible. We had no margin for error. We facilitated many births, and we carried out our duties well in every case!

Hospital management and volunteers provided all medicines and necessities. We did everything quickly to arrange safe conditions for women to give birth. When the first sirens wailed, the first explosions began, they ran downstairs - and gave birth there. This scene is impossible to describe. You have to live through it to understand. You feel this tight string inside you, this pressure that will remain with you forever.

Surgeries and cesarean sections from eight in the morning until sunset. Patients kept arriving. It was taxing. But when the sirens started wailing at night, we turned on the "Stephania" song. And this moment, when a woman in labour is on the operating table, sirens are wailing, a large flag of Ukraine is flying outside big panoramic windows, "Stephania" is on and... a newborn baby is crying. These moments are impossible to convey in words, these feelings. I'm talking about it now, and I'm crying. Life goes on, thanks to and despite everything.

This is our daily work, and we do what we can. We hold the line at the beginning of life, and we must do everything for our future, children, and motherland.