Today, a friend asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing well, even though things can sometimes feel terrifying. These are challenging times, especially given everything that motherhood entails. But now, at 40, I feel that I have acquired what I need—the tools, so to speak—to cope with it all. Overall, I’m doing well, and so is my daughter. She is simply perfect. She is 10 months old now.

I spent my entire life in Kyiv, but when I became pregnant, I moved to a village about 30 kilometers outside the city. Not because I was afraid, but because I felt the need to be closer to nature, to have more peace and energy. Becoming a mother has been a profound transformation for me, but it was the right decision.

Before the war, I had never thought about motherhood at all. I didn’t want children, and I was always certain that I wanted to remain child-free so that I could have more freedom and focus on my career and the other things I loved. But then I joined the army, and something changed in me after I returned from the front.

At 39, I began having my fertility assessed. That was when I realized that I had to make a decision and could no longer put the question off. A powerful desire had emerged in me: I wanted to experience being a mother.

I can’t say exactly what made me change my mind. It was a complex mixture of things, a process. Perhaps my shift in perspective also came from my experiences with death during my military service. Seeing so many Ukrainians being killed has also made me feel that a new life could enrich my own life on a profoundly deep level.

Some people may not understand how anyone could consciously choose parenthood in the middle of a war. But isn’t all human existence uncertain and unpredictable? It doesn’t matter where you are. Still, when I found out I was pregnant, my first reaction was a strange mixture of joy, curiosity, and sheer fear. I had been brave enough to make the decision and come this far, but actually being pregnant was another matter. What worried me most was realizing that I would never be able to reverse my decision—and that I would lose the freedom I had known before.

For me, becoming pregnant felt like the only acceptable way to leave the army. Even so, returning to civilian life was frightening because it raised questions about my future identity and who I would become. So, on many levels, it was a significant step for me.

I wasn’t in Ukraine when the war began. At the time, I was traveling through Africa and later lived in Berlin for a while. But I didn’t feel comfortable simply watching everything unfold from a distance. Eventually, I developed depression, probably because I didn’t feel I was doing enough to help. So I decided to return to Ukraine and contribute in a more active way.

I am happy here. It was genuinely important to me to reconnect with my country and to feel that I was helping. I believe it is essential for people to feel useful—to know that they are contributing to a shared goal, that they are helping their country, their people, their society. That is why I never considered leaving Ukraine again, not even after becoming a mother.

Of course, my personal experience does not represent everyone’s. I have a degree in philosophy, and I had already spent a great deal of time thinking about the fear of death from a philosophical perspective before I decided to work at the front. What I can say is that war intensifies everything. The uncertainty surrounding possible plans for your life—work, family, relationships—becomes even more pronounced. War strips away the illusion of certainty and forces you to be present in the moment.