When parents James Finley and Amanda Aricinega of Saginaw found out they were having conjoined twins, they knew they had to prepare for any possibility.
The twin girls — AmieLynn and JamieLynn — were joined at the abdomen and shared a liver when they were born on Oct. 3.
"We were like 'whoa,' you know — 'why us? Why did God choose us to be these girls' parents?'" Finley said. "You know, I pray. I have faith. We just had to walk through the steps."
Only one in 200,000 births are conjoined twins. Each year only five to eight conjoined twins survive the first few days after birth.
"It was a scary journey because we didn't know what was going to happen," Finley said.
Now, they're relieved: On Monday, a team of 25 medical professionals at Cook Children's hospital in Fort Worth successfully separated the twins after an 11-hour procedure.
The rare operation took months of planning with a team that included over a dozen nurses and specialists locally, as well as input from over 100 doctors around the world.
Dr. José Iglesias, who was among the doctors who led the procedure, said it was the first separation of conjoined twins in Cook Children's 105-year history.
"We ran through multiple simulations to make sure that we could anticipate as much as possible and some things we couldn't anticipate," Iglesias said.
Now that the twins are separated, hospital staff will monitor their recovery process, according to neonatologist Dr. Chad Barber.
"We're focusing on things like pain control, letting their lungs heal, letting their intestines wake up, things like that are a big deal," Barber said.
Finley, the father, said he's just looking forward to holding both twins at his home back in Saginaw.
"We went through the scary stuff," Finley said. "Now it's just resting, healing and after that, it's back to normal babies."
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