A new Netflix documentary showcases the relationship between a Ukrainian surrogate and an Irish woman who saved the woman who gave her a family. 

Two Mothers tells the story of Cathy Wheatley, who travelled to Ukraine when the war started to save the woman who gave birth to her children. 

“When the war broke out Cathy felt compelled to cross the border into a warzone and carry out the family of the woman who had carried hers,” the Netflix description reads. 

Cathy said that makes the whole thing sound “very dramatic”. 

She told The Anton Savage Show she decided to use a surrogate after she lost her first child and was unable to foster or conceive through IVF. 

“Me and Ivana were very similar in that we both wanted contact, we fought for an extra level of contact,” she said. 

Throughout Ivana’s pregnancy, Cathy visited Ukraine for scans and to get know Ivana more until her children were born in November 2019. 

“We had built a bond at that point, we had met her mother, met her kids,” she said. 

“When the kids were babies, we talked once a month on the phone,” she said. “Then the news came that Russia had invaded Ukraine.” 

 “I had actually just been speaking to her the day before.” 

The naval base by Ivana’s house was soon blown up, while Cathy watched on from Irish televisions and had phone calls to Ukraine no longer about catching up but checking who is still alive. 

“My children were born there, we had spent lots of time there, so we knew we had to do something,” Cathy said. 

Eventually, Cathy enlisted two Scottish landscapers who had been helping people reach the borders to find Ivana. 

With Ivana headstrong about remaining in Ukraine, Cathy had to tell “a little white lie”. 

“I told a little white lie – I had lived in Scotland for nine years I studied there, so I told her they were my friends,” she said. 

“The whole time, mammy was lighting candles all over the place.” 

Cathy had planned to meet Ivana at the Romanian border, but the bridge connecting them had been blown up, forcing them to move north to meet. 

Eventually, the Scottish rescue team had taken Ivana as far as they could, leaving Cathy to meet her before she became a “sitting duck” on the ground. 

“I remember just thinking to myself, ‘I need to go in, I need to get in there and I need to get her’,” she said. 

From Ukraine to Ireland

Ivana, her children and her eventually her mother then lived with Cathy, her twins and her husband for the next 18 months. 

While living with the woman who birthed her children wasn’t always easy, Cathy said she wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

“She was recognised legally as the mother,” she explained. “You’re thinking somewhere in the back of your mind that this could go wrong. 

“But I trust Ivana and we had such a connection that we talked about things very openly.” 

Now Ivana and her family have moved out of Cathy’s home – but she’s only six minutes down the road. 

You can watch Two Mothers here.