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Tag: conjoined twins

  • Conjoined Twins Celebrate 10 Years of Separation

    Conjoined twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre recently celebrated ten years of separation. The Negrenese children were formally separated on August 4, 2004, following four surgeries spanning nine months. The New York team of surgeons who performed the surgeries was led by pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. James Goodrich.

    On Monday many of the doctors, along with the formerly conjoined twins and their single mom Arlene, celebrated their separation at the hospital.

    “The people coming to the party are Filipino friends, doctors, nurses and friends of Clarence and Carl,” Arlene told the media.

    Carl and Clarence Aguirre have very distinct personalities these days.

    “Carl is the quiet one. He likes to be alone sometimes and likes to play video games. He still loves The Wiggles. Carl developed seizures two years after the separation but his medical condition is getting better,” their mom says.

    “Clarence is the outgoing kid, very sweet, very protective of his brother and very independent. He likes to dance and sing. He loves Michael Jackson, Maroon 5, Usher and One Direction. He likes playing video games, mostly superheroes. He is very helpful in the house,” she added.

    The entire process of having conjoined twins was compounded for Arlene Aguirre because she is a single mother and not a U.S. citizen, meaning she has no means of gaining employment.

    “The only thing that makes it a little bit better is because Montefiore helps me out with everything. And I have a lot of support and friends,” she said.

    Montefiore, New York is the city the Aguirre family now calls home. They are there on a medical visa.

    Dr. Ceres Baldevia is a Negrense doctor known for volunteering her services for free. She is proud that the conjoined twins were once her patients. She referred them to the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore, New York, when they were a year old.

    “They are now 12-year-olds,” she said.

    Baldevia now lives in San Francisco. She added that Clarence and Carl still wear helmets to protect their skulls but once they are fully grown their skulls will be patched.

    Baldevia also said that the twins are under frequent medical observation and will likely have to remain in the United States permanently. Their multimillion-dollar operations and medical upkeep have been shouldered by the hospital.

    The hospital produced the following video clip about the conjoined twins a couple of years back.

    There have been fewer than twenty known cases of conjoined twins born around the world thus far in the 21st century–meaning Clarence and Carl are nothing short of a miracle.

    How wonderful that these conjoined twins are now celebrating ten years of separation. Just a few short decades ago they wouldn’t have had the chance to undergo these successful successions of surgical procedures.

    Image via YouTube

  • Conjoined Twins Celebrate 18th Birthday

    Emily and Caitlin Copeland, who were born as conjoined twins, recently celebrated their 18th birthday as two separate individuals.

    The girls, who were born joined at the liver, took their birthday as a day to celebrate a successful separation that allowed them to, not only live normal lives like other kids, but graduate co-valedictorians from Lutheran High North in Houston, Texas.

    “I think for anyone it’s exciting to get to 18, but in particular for us I think it’s just a really big blessing that we got to 18, considering what could have happened,” Caitlin said.

    Crystal Copeland, the girl’s mother, found out that she was pregnant with conjoined twins, which occur in approximately one out of 200,000 live births, in 1996. Crystal was shocked and didn’t know what to think. “At the time, if you Googled conjoined twins all you got was circus acts and babies that died,” she said.

    Many cases of conjoined twins are born stillborn. However, Crystal said she had felt the girls kicking and had seen them on the ultrasound and considered them alive and healthy. Crystal met with Dr. Kevin Lally, a surgeon in chief at Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston on a Friday to have him evaluate the girls.

    Then on Monday, after an anxious weekend, Crystal and her husband got the news that they had been hoping for. “They were joined at the liver, not at the heart, which would have been, you know, fatal,” Copeland said. “He thought there were good opportunities for separation where they would both be able to live basically normal lives.”

    The girls underwent their first surgery at only two days old to remove a blockage from one of the girls intestines. The doctors wanted to separate them then, but noticed that the other organs were discharging through only one twin and they decided to wait.

    The girls were later separated successfully, and have exceeded every milestone that the doctors had for them. “You don’t always see the long-term results of what we do, and it’s nice when you get to see a good one,” Lally said.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Conjoined Twins: One Body, Two Faces

    Renee Young and Simon Howie, who already have seven other children, welcomed their twins, via emergency C-section, on Thursday, at Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

    While each and every birth is a special event, this birth was extra unique. The twins Hope and Faith were born conjoined with a rare congenital disorder called diprosopus. Young and Howie found out about their twin’s disorder during their 19-week ultrasound, so they were prepared when the girls were born with one body and two faces.

    Although the girls share a cranium, they each have a separate face and brain. They also share one set of limbs and organs. While most would see the twins as one child because of their appearance, Howie explains that they see them as their twins- two separate human beings.

    “Even though there is only one body, we call them our twins,” Howie said. “To us, they are our girls and we love them.”

    To date, there have been on 40 cases of twins born with two faces. Of those 40, very few survived past birth. However, despite the statistics, the girls are currently doing well. “They are breathing perfectly on their own and feeding. They are little Aussie fighters.”

    Because their condition is so rare, the doctors are monitoring Hope and Faith very closely and currently do not know how long they will remain in the hospital. “We have no idea how long they will be in hospital,” said Howie. “We just want to bring them home, happy and healthy to make our family a little bit bigger and a bit more chaotic.”

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Conjoined Twins Will Stay Together

    Conjoined Twins Will Stay Together

    When conjoined twins Garrett and Andrew Stancombe were born a few weeks ago, their parents had to make a very hard decision. Would they choose to leave their baby boys together or would they allow them to undergo a risky surgery that could cause one or both of the babies to die.

    For parents Michelle Van Horne and Kody Stancombe, the choice was a difficult one. Doctors weren’t sure if the babies would survive the surgery or live very long if they were left conjoined.

    Michelle and Kody decided that the risks associated with the surgery were too great and that they would keep their boys together.

    The babies were allowed to go home just four days after they were born, but doctors warned their parents that they were not sure how long they would survive.

    “They could be with us here tomorrow and gone the next second. A month down they could be gone. They could turn into teenagers,” said Van Horne. “We don’t know and that’s the difficulty.”

    Conjoined twins are the result of one fertilized egg that divides into two fetuses that fail to separate. They are rare and very few of them live for more than a few days.

    The overall survival rate of conjoined twins is only 5 to 25 percent. In spite of these odds, the Stancombe twins are thriving and seem to be healthy.

    According to their parents, they do everything normal, healthy babies do. Michelle and Kody are confident that they made the right choice and hope that their sons can lead normal, happy and healthy lives.

    “I’m thankful they were able to survive this long, and they’re still going strong,” said their father.

    Do you think the parents made the right choice to keep the conjoined twins together or should they have separated them?

    Image via YouTube

  • Conjoined Twins Will Not Be Separated

    When Andrew Donovan Lee and Garrett Lee Donovan Stancombe were born on April 10, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, doctors didn’t know if, or for how long, the boys would survive.

    Andrew and Garrett are not like other newborn twins. They are conjoined twins, who are attached from the breastbone to the waist. They share a heart and a liver, but shockingly are otherwise healthy.

    “They’re not on any machines or anything. They’re on their own strength,” said the boy’s father, Kody Stancombe. Kody explained that they are breathing on their own and doing the things that normal newborns do; crying, sleeping, and eating.

    According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, conjoined twins have an estimated five to twenty-five percent chance of survival. The chance of survival is even lower when they undergo the operation to be separated, which is why Kody and his wife Michelle Van Horne have decided not to separate them.

    “I’m thankful they were able to survive this long, and they’re still going strong,” Kody said. “It would hurt us to lose one and have the other,” Michelle added. “We’ve discussed it and we see the best is to keep them together. They were born together; they can stay together.”

    Doctors originally told Michelle that they were not optimistic about the boy’s survival and told her to expect a still birth. However, the boys made it through the pregnancy and delivery, and are currently doing well.

    Post by Michelle Lee.

    Michelle already has one son 23-month-old son Riley, and said that caring for the twins is not much different than caring for any other newborn. “Caring for a newborn is just the same way, a little more difficulties. I just feel like, ‘I know how to do this,’” she explained. “Definitely changing their diapers and bathing them is a two person job, for sure.”

    Image via Facebook

  • Conjoined Twins – Finally Living Apart

    Allison and Amelia Tucker were born conjoined at the chest and abdomen, and could not be separated at birth due to the extremely complicated surgery that it required. Or at least that is what they were told, and the twins spent half of their life attached to one another.

    When parents Shelly and Greg Tucker who reside in Adams, NY were told by their obstetrician who works with high risk pregnancies that their daughters were conjoined and would not likely be separated successfully, advising that they terminate the pregnancy, they sought a second opinion. They were determined to continue the pregnancy.

    “As he was telling me, I could literally feel the girls kicking in my belly and I knew that that wasn’t something possible,” Shellie said.

    When the Tuckers saw another physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia – doctors said that the girls could be separated, and could have at birth.

    While the family waited for the surgery, the whole family lived at Children’s Hospital, their son Owen, then 2 years old and the twins.

    Doctors prepared for the surgery by practicing on two dolls sewn together.

    “The actual walk-through started with actual baby dolls that didn’t really look as cute as the girls but helped us out,” pediatric surgeon Dr. Holly Hedrick said at a news conference one month after the surgery.

    A team of 40 doctors, assistants and nurses performed the seven-hour grueling surgery, successfully separating Allison and Amelia – on November 7th, 2012.

    ‘Seeing the girls and seeing them climb and get in to things – as aggravated as I get I can’t help but laugh because they’re an absolute miracle,’ their mother Shellie told Good Morning America.

    Image via YouTube

  • Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated

    Conjoined Twins Successfully Separated

    Jenni Ezell gave birth to her twin boys on July 15. This should have been the happiest moment of her life, but instead it was the most frightening.

    The boys, Owen and Emmett Ezell, were born as conjoined twins. They were attached from just below the chest to right above the belly button. Jenni and her husband Dave knew that the boys would need to be separated, however because they shared a liver and intestines and had a birth defect, it made the operation more risky than it already was.

    “The whole pregnancy was very frightening. I didn’t know what would happen. I didn’t know if they would make it. It’s hard as a mom to know that,” said Jenni.

    The Ezell’s found out that Jenni was carrying conjoined twins in March, and was told by her doctor that they would have little chance of survival and should consider aborting the babies. They were then forced to make the toughest decision that any parent has to make: What is the best thing for my child?

    “We didn’t think they had a chance,” Jenni said. “We thought they were not going to make it at all. So we decided to abort. It was the hardest decision that a mother has to make about her babies.”

    After speaking to the doctors, the Ezell’s originally made the heart wrenching decision to abort their babies. However, the doctors at Medical City Dallas told them that they believed that the boys stood a chance of survival. They were told that they stood an approximate 30 to 50 percent chance of survival by Dr. Clare Schwendeman, a neonatologist at Medical City Children’s Hospital. This was completely unexpected news for the Ezells, as they had originally went to the Dallas Clinic to have the abortion and then they were sent to Medical City because the doctors had some concerns that her scar from her previous c-section might rip.

    The Ezells were not seeking a second opinion when they were informed that the boys could survive. Jenni says that she knows that it was all God’s work and him leading them to “exactly where we needed to be.”

    The boys underwent their surgery to be separated on August 24. The surgery was a complete success, however the Ezells are not sure when they will get to bring their little miracles home. Owen and Emmett are currently hooked to breathing machines and are still recovering from the surgery.

    “I’m just so happy that they’re here and they’re alive and thriving. It’s the best feeling in the world,” Jenni Ezell said Thursday during a news conference at Medical City Children’s Hospital.

    What does the future hold for these two beautiful boys? Jenni posted her thoughts and plans for them on her blog:

    As far as the rest of the future steps, I know healing, breathing independently of machines, and feeding are on the horizon, but I am not sure what the individual steps will be, and I’m not sure how long it will take. I’m hoping we will get to take them home by Christmas, but that might be wishful thinking.