Mom Shared A Tender Moment With Her Conjoined Twins – Before Doctors Told Her The Hurtful Truth

Christian and Nicole McDonald waited anxiously in the pediatric ICU. After all, a team of surgeons had just spent 16 hours operating on the couple’s twins. In fact, the 13-month-old boys, born conjoined at the head, had already endured several surgeries, but the final cranial separation was the riskiest of them all. Of course, such an operation had been months in the making, including planning, prepping, and other surgeries. But for the parents, the tough journey began in 2015 when the babies were still in utero.

At the time, the McDonalds lived in a small town in Illinois where Nicole worked as a pediatric physical therapist. She and her husband Christian, a truck driver, took shifts raising their three-year-old son, Aza. At first, they were excited Nicole was pregnant again. Christian even accompanied her to her first ultrasound in May 2015. In fact, when the ultrasound technician announced:

“You’re having twins,”

it was a surprise, but one they were happy to welcome. Only just after the appointment, Nicole received an urgent call from the doctor’s office. They told her she needed to return immediately. Since Christian had already gone back to work and Nicole was home, she phoned her family for help and support. Leaving Aza with his great-grandmother, Nicole returned to the ultrasound clinic with her mother, where she underwent a second ultrasound and received troubling news. Yes, the twins she was carrying were conjoined.

“From what it appears, they share a head,” the doctor told her. “We don’t know how much.”

In fact, conjoined twins are already a rare phenomenon, but craniopagus twins—those conjoined at the head—are even less common. Such births happen only once in every 2.5 million deliveries. Conjoined twins are genetically identical twins who come from a single egg. In normally developed identical twins, the egg splits to create two separate embryos; however, in conjoined twins, the egg doesn’t fully separate and the embryos develop with some parts fused together. Because they literally share the same brain, cranially conjoined twins face more difficulties than most. More often, conjoined twins are attached at the torso, called thoracopagus twins. Typically, craniopagus twins don’t survive gestation. For those that are born alive, 80 percent do not live past the age of two unless they’re surgically separated.

The McDonalds therefore had a difficult decision to make. Indeed, doctors and family members suggested terminating the pregnancy, but Nicole ultimately decided to carry the twins as long as she could. Her mother told her:

“God gave you these babies. They’re meant for you.”

“There were some people who had suggested it, and so with that suggestion, it made Christian want to explore all those options and what that would mean. But for me, it was never an option,” Nicole said.

Nicole gave birth on September 9, 2015, to two attached but otherwise healthy twin boys, Jadon and Anias. Of course, the boys required special needs. For instance, they couldn’t fit in a crib, so instead they slept in the middle of a queen-sized bed with a pillow between them. Instead of riding in a typical car seat, moreover, the boys would have to lay on the floor of the McDonalds’ minivan and be watched carefully.

Christian and Nicole knew that the boys needed surgical separation if they were going to survive. Thankfully, the world’s leading expert in craniopagus surgery, Dr. James Goodrich, took their case. Dr. Goodrich practiced at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. He had completed seven conjoined twin separations in his career and consulted on 13 others. Now, he had to prepare to take on the most difficult case of his career.

The McDonalds would need to be near the hospital for several months during the lead-up to the surgery. Therefore, Christian and Nicole both quit their jobs and moved from their town of 5,000 people to the Bronx. The family had been relying on donations on a GoFundMe account to cover expenses. Fortunately, and thanks to an outburst of public support after a CNN special hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the GoFundMe raised over $250,000. Of course, the support overwhelmed Nicole and Christian, but they needed all the support they could get, both financially and emotionally.

After all, the twins had to have three surgeries before the actual separation surgery. Each time, Dr. Goodrich stretched the skin on the boys’ heads. The increased skin would allow the plastic surgeon to complete a cranial reconstruction for each of the boys once they were separated. Even with meticulous early planning, though, the final separation surgery carried high risks. Christian and Nicole were well aware that one or both of their boys might suffer brain damage or even death.

With that in mind, on October 13, 2016, they kissed Jadon and Anias as the medical team wheeled them into their fourth and final surgery. The McDonalds stood by waiting to see if their boys would survive. Then, after an excruciating 16 hours, they finally received the news: yes, the doctors had successfully separated Jadon and Anias.

Excitingly, the medical team moved Jadon to the ICU to begin recovery. However, the doctors needed to perform extra work on Anias, who had always been the weaker twin. Even when conjoined, Anias had suffered from several seizures during the surgery, counting one attack that had gone on for three-quarters of an hour. Therefore, Nicole and Christian had to wait another painful five hours before the team wheeled out Anias on his own bed.

Christian leaned over to give him a kiss and said:

“I love you, pumpkin. You look just like your brother.”

But the boys weren’t out of danger quite yet. After all, the first 72 hours after the surgery are the most crucial. Since Jadon and Anias shared some brain tissue, Dr. Goodrich had to carefully cut between them. And since the shared brain tissue was likely part of their motor cortex, it was possible this could affect feeling in parts of the boys’ bodies. In fact, as of late October 2016, Jadon had shown no movement on the left side of his body, but his father said the boy’s right side was strong.

“Jadon will squeeze your fingers and not let go on his right side,” Christian said.

It was too soon to tell whether Jadon would regain feeling, but his parents were just happy that the boys were stable and separated.

“It’s not that I’m not optimistic. I guess I, uh, I’m just more curious what the future holds for them. But I guess I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know? I guess I just take it one day at a time.”

The recovery will, of course, be long and slow, but Anias’s seizures have already been brought under control with the help of anti-seizure medications, and thankfully, Jadon has had his breathing tubes removed. In fact, Nicole was finally able to hold her son on his own for the first time.

“I looked down on Jadon’s angelic face and saw him in a way I’ve never seen him before,” she said.

Let’s hope that this family gets many more experiences like that in years to come.

“I think about their future all the time. I think about the first time they go to a park, and I think about, you know, them getting married someday. I think about… I think I’ve thought through their whole future a hundred times already.”