Three months after surviving the October 7 Hamas massacre, along with her husband Yuval, 31, and their son Tai, 2.5, Ofir Balachsan, 31, from Kibbutz Sufa gave birth to her daughter and named her Cami, which means to rise. "Instead of sinking in despair, we rose, we are alive, and we are okay," she says.
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"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," says Ofir, who hid for hours in a bomb shelter with her son and Yuval's parents, while her husband, the commander of the kibbutz's alert squad, fought with his comrades against Hamas terrorists who infiltrated the kibbutz.
She spent the last months of her pregnancy in a hotel room in Eilat. "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 a very basic instability. All I thought about was that the baby would be born in the best possible way. Yes, it wasn't the hospital where I planned to give birth, but still, it was exactly the birth I wanted. After Cami was born, they laid her on me and I cried out, it was a great victory."
"We lost many friends, and many others were kidnapped," she adds. "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."
Now the family is trying to adapt to life in Ramat Gan, where they moved along with other members of their kibbutz. "We never imagined we'd live in a city, but, as Yuval says, we'll make lemonade out of lemons. Right now, I can't imagine going back to the kibbutz. On the other hand, I can't imagine myself living anywhere else. We'll return when the conditions are right and expand our family there."