"Nearly 20 years ago, a woman from Texas was a first-time expectant mother, pregnant with a set of twin girls.
However, when the doctor rescanned Crystal’s ultrasound, he confirmed her worst nightmare: there were two embryos and two heartbeats, but Emily and Caitlin were fused together at the liver and chest. Conjoined twins occur once in every 200,000 live births.
Back in 1996, Crystal and her husband panicked and prayed when she thought about the surgery, especially since these types of operations weren’t as advanced as they are today.
At one point, doctors gave the Copelands the option to terminate the pregnancy, because they didn’t know if Emily and Caitlin were conjoined at the heart, which can be fatal.
When they discovered the twins only shared a liver, Crystal and her husband clung to the doctors’ optimism that surgery would be successful.
Then came another obstacle:
When Emily and Caitlin underwent their first surgery at just two days old, doctors also realized the organs were discharging through only one twin; they decided to wait for the girls to get bigger before separating them.
Emily and Caitlin lived as conjoined twins for 10 whole months before they went in for their final surgery to separate their bodies..."
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