Conjoined twin brothers who share the same the same body and heart have been born today in Atlanta.
Asa and Eli Hamby - who can never be separated - were welcomed into the world at 7.32am via a pre-planned C-section to mom Robin and dad Michael and according to a dedicated 'Hamby Twins' Facebook page are healthy and well.
'Babies are out and so far they are doing amazing,' an 8am post declared about the 9 pounds, 10 ounce children, 'Both babies crying their little eyes out!!'
Scroll Down for Video
Asa & Eli's first picture with their Mom Robin! Robin was reunited with her new sons when she woke from the c-section late morning on Thursday
Robin Hamby poses for a group picture with family and friends prior to her scheduled cesarian section of conjoined twin boys on Thursday morning
The Hamby's, who already have a 22-month-old daughter, have been preparing for the birth of their sons since their first visit to the ob/gyn in May
Help: This CGI graphic (left) shows what Asa and Eli will look like as Michael and daughterSelah spend time with Robin before she is operated on to deliver their sons
Family addition: Robin, Michael and Selah Humby have welcomed two new family members today in Atlanta
With no immediate complications, the boys are on oxygen masks as a precaution while doctors at Northside hospital in Atlanta examine them.
Born with two heads, but sharing one body, the condition Asa and Eli have is known as dicephalic parapagus - an extremely unusual form of conjoinment, affecting only one-in-a-million births.
Asa and Eli can never be separated because they share one heart and one circulatory system.
Shortly after the birth, Robin was told there was a slight issue with her son's heart, but that they are doing well.
'There is an issue with the right side of the heart. The left side is perfect. The right side has like an extra atrium and an extra ventricle, and there's two aortas. One of the arteries is like switched, not in the right place because of having extra ones, but he said that their vital signs are stable,' said mmom to the Ledger Enquirer.
One-in-a-million: Asa and Eli are seen here in an ultrasound taken at 35-weeks. The first time that Robin and Michael had seen the faces of their two unborn sons
Both Robin and Michael are 34 and are being supported by their extended family, included Michael's father David, who has been wearing a T-shirt all morning embossed with 'Two souls sharing one heart.'
'Now, I'm waiting to hear that they're OK with everything else,' said David Hamby, Michael's father to the Ledger Enquirer
The rare and extremely risky pregnancy carried through to 37 weeks and Robin and Michael traveled from Alabama to Atlanta's Northside Hospital for specialist care.
'Robin is doing amazing and rocked that surgery!!!' the twins' aunt, Emily Berdeaux posted online shortly after the twins were born this morning.
Once stabilized, Asa and Eli are going to be transported to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta later on on during Thursday morning.
The expert medical team at Northside, included two obstetricians who coached dad, Michael through the procedure up until he posted a video to his son's Facebook page early this morning.
'We are excited about the birth,' an anxious looking Michael said. 'We are nervous, scared. You name it, we are going through it.'
The next few days are vital for the Hamby Twins, especially in light of daunting statistics from the University of Maryland Medical Center which state that the only 35 percent of conjoined twins only survive one day.
Medical marvel: This MRI scan from 35 weeks shows Asa and Eli Hamby inside the womb and their two healthy heads and brains are clearly visible
Indeed, the overall survival rate for conjoined twins, let alone those with Esa and Eli's conjoinment is between five and 25 percent.
Female conjoined twins are three times more likely than male conjoined twins to be born alive, writes the Ledger Enquirer.
However, with that hurdle now out of the way, the doctors now have a chance to examine and determine their shared anatomy.
While they share the same body, have one set of arms and legs and have two separate heads, doctors believe they also share the same heart and liver and amazingly, three lungs - one each and a shared third one.
'We are nervous, scared. You name it, we are going through it.'
They have separate esophaguses, stomachs, intestines, kidneys (one each), ureters, bladders (fused together), gall bladders (fused together) and spinal cords.
The Hamby's, who already have a 22-month-old daughter, have been preparing for the birth of their sons since their first visit to the ob/gyn in May.
Having already been told their chances of conceiving were low, Robin and Michael believed their first child to be a minor miracle.
When they found out they were pregnant for a second time they were ecstatic, but while the ultrasound was being done, they knew something was not right.
'I asked the ultrasound tech if there where two babies in there,' said Robin.
'As a nurse I knew enough about ultrasounds to tell that it wasn't just one baby.
'The answer she gave me wasn't an answer any mother could ever be prepared to recieve. She said 'Yes you are having twins but I believe they are conjoined.'
Preparation: Although her pregnancy has been normal, Robin and husband Michael are preparing for a high-risk birth. The couple discovered during Robin’s first ultrasound they were expecting conjoined twins
However, rather than let that be bad news, the Hamby's decided it was positive.
'Children are a gift from God, and Selah was a miracle,' said Robin to the Ledger Enquirer. 'It gives us more confidence in God for the twins.'
That turned to excitement when they got the first ultrasound that showed them the two faces of their sons two weeks ago.
'It makes the realization start to set in,' said Michael to the Ledger Enquirer. 'They look good. It's exciting,' added the hydrant valve technician for the Columbus Water Works.
'I definitely can picture them more in my mind now,' said Robin to the Ledger Enquirer.
'But they've always been real to me because I can feel every bump and movement they make.'
When doctors discovered that Asa and Eli shared the one body, they referred them to a maternal-fetal specialist.
Michael told the Ledger Enquirer that they did not have a good experience there.
'They were trying to push toward termination, but we're strong Christian people, and we don't believe in that. After telling them no, they started dealing out statistics and things of that nature. So we decided not to see them anymore.'
After that the couple decided to go to Northside Hospital in Atlanta..
Amazing: In this scan taken at 34 weeks - either Asa or Eli is visible showing them to be healthy and safe and free from complications
They asked us if we want to terminate,' said Michael. 'We told them no, and that was it. Then we started talking about what we need to do for the babies, and that's the way it's been.'
As they researched the pregnancy, the Hamby's realized the conjoined twins who most resembled their sons were Abigail and Brittany Hensel, who are now 24.
They had a widely watched reality show on TLC which showed them being able to drive and function as normally as anyone could as two people sharing the same body.
They both now teach at a Minnesota elementary school. The Hamby's were heartened.
Although her pregnancy has been normal, Robin and husband Michael are prepared for a high-risk birth. The couple discovered during Robin's first ultrasound they were expecting conjoined twins.
'Obviously, I was upset when I found out,' Robin remembered. 'You want your babies to be healthy. You want your babies to not feel any pain or have to go through surgeries, or all the things that come into your mind when you think what could happen to conjoined twins. You always want healthy babies.
Proud father: Michael comes into the waiting room to tell his family that his sons have been born and are currently very healthy
'It was a shock, and I cried. And I called (Michael) and said, 'Hey, you need to get here to the doctor's office.' And I told him that we were having twins and that they were conjoined. He was shocked, obviously. But we prayed about it, and we just said that we were going to count each day as joy and take it as we get it.'
While the Hamby twins will not be classified until they are born by Cesarean Section on Dec. 4, Michael said Eli and Asa are the rarest type of conjoined twins.
'Most conjoined twins are joined chest-to-chest, abdomen. To have a baby, babies, that are joined with one body and two heads is rare in itself,' he explained. 'There is only a handful that are soul mates for life, like our boys will be.'
Because Eli and Asa share a heart and circulatory system, they will never be able to be separated.
You want your babies to be healthy. You want your babies to not feel any pain or have to go through surgeries, or all the things that come into your mind when you think what could happen to conjoined twins.
'They have a perfect heart; their brains are great,' Robin said. 'They're as healthy as they can be. A lot of times, they'll have multiple, multiple types of problems. They've grown well.'
As Robin neared her due date, the Hambys made weekly trips to Atlanta to see five different specialists.
'We've had to go through fetal MRIs and ultrasounds. We've met with pediatric cardiologists
and neonatologists and pediatric surgeons,' Robin said. 'They can do all the tests in the world, but none of them has seen a set of babies exactly like ours. Most of the doctors
that we've seen have only either dealt with conjoined twins a few times, maybe a handful of times.'
The Hambys' fetal specialist has been in the field for three decades.
During that time, the couple said, he has only cared for five sets of conjoined twins. Three were aborted, and two did not make it to term. And doctors are not sure what complications may arise after Eli and Asa are born.
'The neonatologist said two things can happen. They can come into this world as healthy babies and then get sick on us really quickly,' Michael said. 'Or they can come in sick and we can get them healthy. It's hard to say. We don't know.'
Throughout the doctors' visits, travel and medical bills, the Hambys have leaned on family and friends. Thursday's fundraiser at Good Ol' Boys was hosted by family, and the community has held yard sales, bake sales and gospel singings, along with selling T-shirts emblazoned with how Michael and Robin see their boys — 'Two Souls Sharing One Heart.'
TOGETHER FOR LIFE: CONJOINED TWINS OVER RECENT YEARS
Conjoined twins are two children physically connected to each other at some point in their bodies.
The lowest odds of this happening are 200,000 to one for every live birth and around 70 percent of conjoined twins are female.
Conjoined twins are always the same sex and the form of conjoined twinning refers directly to where they are joined.
The most most frequent are horacopagus (heart, liver, intestine), omphalopagus (liver, biliary tree, intestine), pygopagus (spine, rectum, genitourinary tract), ischiopagus (pelvis, liver, intestine, genitourinary tract), and craniopagus (brain, meninges). (American Pediatric Surgical Association)
Experts think that conjoined twins come from a single egg that fails to separate.
Around 200 conjoined twins are born each year and around half die before their first birthday.
Veena and Vani, ten, were born joined at the head, but their parents left them in their local hospital in Hyderabad, India because they could not pay their medical expenses.
For eight years the girls have eaten, played and slept in one room at Niloufer Hospital and have been cared for by nursing staff. They cannot be separated.
Their doctor, Dr Narendra Kumar, a paediatric surgeon, is trying to find an international surgeon who specialises in neurology to perform the operation.
He said: 'It has always been possible to operate on the girls because they both have individual brains.
'The problem lies with the one main blood vessel they share so it does have its risks.'
Laleh and Ladan Bijani caught the attention of the world when at the age of 29 they decided to have surgery to separate.
The sister's skulls were joined above the ear but each of their brains was intact. They were never able to look into one another's face without the aid of a mirror.
Their dream was to walk out of Raffles Hospital in Singapore and walk in opposite directions. Sadly they both died after their surgery.
Born in Tehran in 1974, they developed different personalities and made separate groups of friends.
Ladan was the stronger personality and was more talkative, while Laleh was quieter. So when Ladan said she was determined to become a lawyer, Laleh had no choice but to study law with her.
Conjoined twins Shivanath and Shivram Sahucaused quite a stir when they were born in India, with some people in their village worshipping them as divine incarnations.
And while one doctor has said that it would be possible to separate the 12-year-olds, who were born joined at the waist, the duo are determined to remain together.
Shivram said: ‘We don't wish to get separated. We will stay like this even when we grow old. We want to live as we are.’
The pair, who were born in a tiny village near Raipur in central India, share two legs and four arms and work in tandem to get around.
They have stunned doctors with their ability to wash, dress and feed themselves.
A local doctor told the family they were both healthy but he could not separate them.
They are believed to share the same stomach but have independent lungs, hearts and brains.
With practice they have learned to do all their basic daily chores with minimal fuss, including showering, eating, getting dressed and combing each other's hair.
They are able to walk down the stairs of their simple split-level home and even run on all six limbs to play cricket and other games with neighboring children.
'We've had people buy T-shirts from all over the world. We've sent them as far as South Africa,' Robin said.
Family will help after the babies are born, too, when Robin recovers in Atlanta's Northside Hospital and Michael follows Eli and Asa to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta in Egleston.
The Hambys attend The Verge church, and they say the congregation has helped out immensely.
And while the couple expected support from their family when they first learned about the twins, neither expected the outpouring they've received from the community.
'But I don't think that you think that far ahead anyway when you find out about something like this, any sickness in any child, whether they're conjoined twins or whether they've got juvenile diabetes or any other type of medical issues or needs,' Robin said. 'You don't usually think that far ahead. You're usually right there in the moment.'
The couple has also relied on their faith.
'Our faith in the Lord was strong in all this. This is what kept our peace of mind,' Michael said. 'We have gotten countless
upon countless times of him giving us peace about all of this, that we're making the right decision in keeping the babies. We've had doctors tell us we need to write them off, I guess you'd say. We just couldn't do that.'
Their sons' names are also a reminder of the faith that has carried them through Robin's pregnancy.
'We named all of our children out of the Bible. Selah is a Hebrew name. Eli and Asa are Hebrew names,' Robin said 'One was a high priest, and one was a king. It talks about how God felt they were good men.'
Michael added the three-letter names will also be easier for the boys to write. He's also worked to make becoming a big sister easier on Selah by crafting a doll to resemble her brothers. Still, Robin said, she's too young to understand how her family will change.
'We've tried our best to help her understand, but she's still not quite 2, so she still doesn't know that her life is going to change,' Robin said. 'She's going to have brothers.'
No comments:
Post a Comment