‘I knew she felt everything inside my belly. I had to stay calm for her.’
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Ofir Balachsan, 31, who hid with her 2-year-old Tai in a kibbutz shelter while her husband Yuval, 31, battled terrorists on October 7th, just gave birth to a baby girl.
The couple, who survived the Hamas attack on Kibbutz Shufa named their daughter, Cami, which means “to rise.”
Ofir said, “Instead of sinking in despair, we rose, we are alive, and we are okay.”
Ofir recalls worrying about the baby in her womb, her young child, her parents and her husband, who was a commander in the kibbutz’s alert squad during the terrorist onslaught on October 7th.
“With everything we’ve been through, an experience I still can’t digest, I knew she felt everything inside my belly. I had to stay calm for her,” she said.
The family spent hours in the shelter fearing the terrorists would attack them at any minute.
Although thankful to have survived, Ofir said the time spent in Eilat in the initial weeks after the evacuation was also a challenge.
“This period was very frustrating. All a woman wants before giving birth is stable ground, and when you don’t have that, you’re in very basic instability,” Ofir recalls.
When the baby arrived, she described her feeling of jubilation, “After Cami was born, they laid her on me and I cried out, it was a great victory.”
The urge to go forward, survive the terrorist invasion and to cope with displacement in a strange city caused Ofir to focus on the pregnancy and her child, so the weight of the October 7th tragedy didn’t hit her until after Cami was born.
She said, “We lost many friends, and many others were kidnapped. Three days after I gave birth, it all hit me.”
“Until then, I was focused on pregnancy and childbirth, and after it was over I had time to think. What if they would kill us? What if they would kidnap us? I can’t imagine that,” she added.
Currently, the family is staying in Ramat Gan with other members of the kibbutz.
“We never imagined we’d live in a city, but, as Yuval says, we’ll make lemonade out of lemons,” Ofir said.
“Right now, I can’t imagine going back to the kibbutz. On the other hand, I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else,” she added.
“We’ll return when the conditions are right and expand our family there.”