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Only little by little did Gracie Attard learn the story of her twin Rosie, the sister who’d died shortly after their birth. There was no sudden revelation, just a drip-feed of information; a slow-dawning realisation. ‘Mum and Dad used to take me to the cemetery where Rosie is buried and tell me: “She’s your sister, and you were twins.” Actually, they said we were joined together,’ she says. ‘Later I heard them use the word “conjoined”. I didn’t know what it meant, and when I was about seven I got my first dictionary and looked it up. ‘Then I felt...

One twin uses an iPad, plays video games and dances to Michael Jackson tunes. The other has significant, possibly permanent, problems walking and talking. The delicate separation 10 years ago of conjoined twins from the Philippines wasn't perfect, but the boys' mother says their very survival is reason enough to celebrate the anniversary. "When they were born, the doctors at home told me, 'You have to choose which one is to live,'" Arlene Aguirre said. "I said, 'I cannot choose that.' The doctors here did not ask me to choose." The boys, now 12, were born joined at the top...

An Australian mother of seven has given birth to a rare set of conjoined twins who have two faces, two brains, and share one body. Despite doctors’ advice to terminate the pregnancy, Renee Young and partner Simon Howie, proud parents of the “Aussie fighters,” Faith and Hope, welcomed the girls last Thursday after Young went into labor six weeks early via emergency C-section. The girls were born with the rare condition diprosopus, where the embryo fails to completely split and twins share one body. The two girls are now in stable condition and breathing without any assistance.

TWINS Trishna and Krishna are recovering after marathon surgery of almost 32 hours, described as a "perfect" operation. Royal Children's Hospital head of surgery Leo Donnan emerged from the hospital shortly about 4.30pm today to declare the twins were now recovering in intensive care following the completion of five hours or reconstructive surgery. It came about three-and-a-half hours after he revealed the twins were successfully separated after almost 27 hours of complex surgery, the Herald Sun reports. Mr Donnan said the twins were "in good condition and healthy". "They’re both where we thought they’d be." He said the large team...

Here is a report on the birth of a set of "conjoined twins" in Indonesia with two heads but a single body. The boys share all vital organs, but each has his own heart. Doctors in Indonesia say it is "medically impossible" to separate the twins. . . . . . (Watch Video)

PORTSMOUTH, UK, January 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Lisa Chamberlain, 25, pregnant with dicephalus twins who have separate heads but share a single body, is determined to allow her conjoined daughters a chance at life, despite doctors advice to kill the children in utero. If the babies survive after birth, they will become the first ever living British dicephalus twins. "Some people might look at me and say 'You're going to give birth to a freak' but I don't care because I feel blessed," Chamberlain told the UK Sun. "To me, my twins are a gift from God and we're determined...

VERNON, British Columbia, May 18, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Canadian physician and writer, Dr. Ken Walker, has upset a BC family after he wrote in a column that their two conjoined baby girls ought to have been aborted to avoid being seen as “freaks of nature.”Walker, a syndicated columnist under the pen name Dr. W. Gifford-Jones, called the twins’ mother, Felicia Simms, “irrational” and suggested she should have had an abortion. Walker wrote, “Physically they are destined for ill health, lying on their backs forever. They will become obese and develop the myriad of diseases that accompany this problem. Their...

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world. A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Doctors who conducted a series of tests on 10-year-old conjoined Indian twins said on Tuesday they believed it was possible to surgically separate the girls who were born fused at the head. Saba and Farah Shakeel, a roadside food stall owner's daughters, have been through a battery of tests at Apollo Hospital in the capital. Doctors say the separation surgery will be complicated because the girls share a major blood drainage vessel in the brain. Another big challenge is that only one girl has both kidneys, while the other has none. "We believe we can separate...

Arlene Aguirre, who brought her conjoined sons to America in hopes of giving them a normal life, said Monday she could barely believe it when one of the twins took his first steps into her arms. ``The first time I saw him walking, I just started crying,'' she said. ``I just pinched myself. It's just like I was dreaming. ... I said, `Clarence, is that really you?''' Clarence Aguirre was 3 years old, much older than most kids, when he started walking in late August. But the milestone came barely a year after he and his brother Carl, who were...

SIAMESE twins from Anhui Province were sent to Shanghai East Hospital on March 1 for separation surgery, the Shanghai Youth Daily reported. Shanghai East Hospital is our last opportunity, I hope Shanghai doctors can successfully separate my babies,?said the mother of the twins. The twins are staying in the special ward for newborn babies. The twins share a heart, their livers and intestines are connected together and their bodies are connected for 15 centimetres from chest to navel. Liu Zhongmin, president of the hospital, said the incidence of Siamese twins is only one out of 200,000 births. He said this...

Two-headed lamb born in China A two-headed lamb has been born in China. Farmer Han Dianrong, 74, of Yantai city, Shangdong province, said he had never seen anything like it. The lamb, one of four born to the same ewe, has four eyes and two mouths. Mr Dianrong says both heads bleat together when the lamb sees people approaching. The weight of two heads is too much for the lamb's neck so it has to be fed by bottle.

<p>The former conjoined tortoises -- who drew worldwide media attention when they were separated in a delicate three-hour operation February 8 -- returned home to Tucson, Arizona, this week showing signs of relishing their separate lives, owners Sharon and Bobby Ehasz said.</p>

SAN ANTONIO - A pair of seven-month-old conjoined twins were taken off respirators and died after their parents and doctors decided medical technology would be unable to separate the girls. Parents Dawn and Matt Smith decided to have their daughters Brynleigh and Victoria taken off ventilators Thursday night after consulting with doctors, the San Antonio Express-News reported in Friday editions. "It was not just one thing," Dawn Smith told the newspaper. "We had to look at the whole picture, at the whole package. They are incredibly sick. They can't get off the ventilators. I think they are just telling me,...

The family of two-year-old conjoined twins have been celebrating a successful operation to separate them. Surgeons worked for over 30 hours to divide the heads of Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim from Egypt, teasing apart a complex network of blood vessels. "When somebody came up and said 'We have two boys', the father Ibrahim jumped to my neck and he hugged me and he fainted," said the twins' Egyptian doctor Nasser Abdelal. The boys' successful surgery comes as another set of conjoined twins were separated in Italy following a 12-hour operation. 'Only chance' The team of surgeons told a news conference...

DALLAS (AP) - After 26 hours in the operating room, pediatric neurosurgeons successfully separated two-year-old Egyptian twins joined at the top of their heads on Sunday. Doctors at Children's Medical Center Dallas spent the night separating the intricate connection of blood vessels running between the brains of Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim - considered the riskiest part of the operation. They were separated at 11:17 a.m., hospital officials announced later in a prepared statement. "They are now within striking distance of living independent lives," said Dr. Jim Thomas, chief of critical care at the hospital. The next procedure could take as...

SINGAPORE - Iranian twins Laleh and Ladan Bijani, joined at the head for 29 years, died within 90 minutes of each other Tuesday after doctors separated them but were unable to control their bleeding in the unprecedented surgery. In their homeland, people cried out in shock or wept as state television broke into normal programming to announce their deaths during the third day of surgery in Singapore. "Is my beloved Ladan really not with us anymore?" Zari Bijani, an elder sister of the twins, said after Ladan's death was reported. Seconds later, she fainted. Hospital officials said Ladan died 90...

SINGAPORE (AP) _ Neurosurgeons working to separate Iranian twin sisters joined at the head completed one of the most dangerous steps Monday by rerouting a shared vein as thick as a finger that helped blood flow through their brains, a hospital official said. An international team of five neurosurgeons successfully attached a vein graft before beginning the process of separating the brains of 29-year-old Ladan and Laleh Bijani in the unprecedented operation expected to last up to four days, a Raffles Hospital official said on condition of anonymity. Doctors were not going to cut through the twins' fused skull bone...

Separated twin girls return to Guatemala Crowd welcomes 'Little Marias' who had been joined at the skull 01/14/2003 Associated Press GUATEMALA CITY - Twin Guatemalan girls born fused at the skull returned home Monday after successful surgery to the welcoming arms of families, friends and dignitaries. "These little girls make all of Guatemala smile," said sculptor Gloria Chanex, who sells clay pots in a Guatemala City tourist market. "Many people outside Guatemala will watch the return. A happy country is what they will see." Their grandfathers held the drowsy twins above their heads, the girls' dark blue dresses flapping...

Guatemalan twins born joined at the skull were released from the hospital Monday to return to their homeland, five months after the girls were separated in a marathon surgery.The 17-month-old twins were draped in pink and blue feathers and wore tiaras over their bandaged heads as they emerged from Mattel Children's Hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles.The girls and their parents, Alba Leticia Alvarez, 23, and Wenceslao Quiej Lopez, 21, were to leave for a five-hour flight to Guatemala City aboard a Federal Express business jet."I am very grateful to all the staff," Lopez said. "I want...