At 11 weeks pregnant, Liliya Miroshnik’s doctors discovered something very unique about her daughter. They are craniopagus twins, which means their heads are conjoined.
“It’s a very, very rare abnormality,” said Dr. Michael Edwards, a lead pediatric neurosurgeon at UC Dais Children’s Hospital in Sacramento. “There are very few cords in a year around the world that have this anomaly, and of those, only a much smaller group whose anatomy is random enough to try to separate them and hopefully have two healthy children. ”
At first, the news of the conjoined twins overwhelmed Liliya, then three years old. But her husband, Anatoliy Bachinskiy, helped soothe her troubled heart.
“That is very difficult. He was surprised. I couldn’t handle it,” Liliya recalled. “When I got home, my husband told him that everything was going to be okay. We’ll get through it. These are our children. I already love them.”
After the initial shock wore off, the couple prepared as much as possible for their daughter’s rare condition. But really, the only option is to trust God to guide you.
Plans for conjoined twins
Doctors at UC Daʋis Children’s Hospital spent a lot of time preparing for the arrival of AƄigail and Micaela Bachinskiy. They ran many simulations, trying to predict any and all possible complications in their 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡 process.
Finally, the day of battle has arrived. And the conjoined twins have arrived unharmed!
The girls spent several weeks in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) before returning home. And as they got older, the doctors knew that at some point their heads would have to be removed.+
