Conjoined Twins Find a Life Apart (page 5 of 6)

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Watch a video of Kendra and Maliyah enjoying life after separation.

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Photographed by Joanna B. Pinneo/Aurora

"Sometimes I miss being stuck to Kendra," says Maliyah (front). But it's fun to sleep in my own bed."

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Photographed by Joanna B. Pinneo/Aurora

"Because of what we've gone through with the girls, we're more optimistic about life," says Erin Herrin, here with husband Jake and their five children (from left): Justin, Kendra, Courtney, Austin, and Maliyah.

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Photographed by Joanna B. Pinneo/Aurora

Courtney reads to her sisters in the family's playroom, which has a ramp (left) for easy access and a slide (right) for fun.

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Dr. Meyers couldn't say for sure. Still, she told Erin and Jake, inaction carried its own risk. "So far, the girls have done fine on one kidney," she said. "But if they hit a major growth spurt, it could overtax the organ."

Torn, the couple prayed together. They consulted child psychologists and medical ethicists. They sought advice from an Internet support group for parents of conjoined twins, with a dozen members in the United States and Australia. Still, says Jake, "we felt alone—like we were the only people in the world going through this."

Although the Herrins had never intended to burden the girls with the decision, the twins wound up tipping the scales. "You mean I can be playing on the computer while Maliyah plays with Barbies in the other room?" Kendra asked one day when Erin raised the subject.

"And we can sleep in our own beds?" added Maliyah.

Erin nodded, and the twins giggled happily.

Cut-apart day, as the girls called it, was scheduled for August 7, 2006. Two months before the surgery, Kendra and Maliyah were admitted to Primary Children's, where doctors inserted balloon expanders into their torso, filling them with a little more saline solution every week. The devices, often used in reconstructive surgery, gradually stretched the girls' skin so there would be enough to cover the tissue left exposed by the separation. To ease the discomfort, the twins slept on a mattress filled with soft sand.

Preparing them psychologically was equally important. Erin made the girls a long paper chain so they could count down to the big day. The hospital's counselors gave them each a pair of dolls, sewn together, which they could separate when they felt ready. Kendra cut hers apart right away; Maliyah waited until shortly before the surgery.

At 7 a.m. on August 7, the twins lay on a gurney as a nurse wheeled them toward the operating room. They seemed calm, even cheerful. Hospital staffers had decorated the corridor with lift-the-flap posters celebrating the girls' individuality—Who likes caterpillars? Maliyah. Who likes butterflies? Kendra—and they stopped the cart under each one, making the trip into a kind of scavenger hunt. At the last moment, though, both twins broke down: "I don't want to go! Let us stay with you!"

Their parents stroked and soothed them while hiding their own anxiety. "Letting them go," says Erin, "was the hardest thing I've ever done."

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