Conjoined 6-month-old twin girls are preparing for a major medical milestone this month, as they begin tissue expansion to stretch their skin for use in covering parts of their bodies after a separation surgery planned for December. Their journey is filled with hope, love, and a mother’s understandable worries about what lies ahead.

The tissue expansion process for Knatalye Hope Mata and Adeline Faith Mata is expected to take six to eight weeks.

The girls are joined at the abdomen and share a liver, diaphragm, pelvis, intestines, and the lining surrounding the heart.

“When I think about December, I get that sick feeling in my stomach. I want to know how much discomfort they are going to experience afterward. What is it going to be like for them?” their mother, Elysse Mata, said.

“They are where they should be developmentally. They reach up for toys, they reach out for us when we get close and talk to them,” she explained.

The girls were born via cesarean section at nearly eight months of pregnancy and are scheduled to undergo separation at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where a team of surgeons will perform a lengthy and complex procedure.

“The intestines appear to be intermingled, but there appears to be enough intestinal tissue for both children,” said Dr. Darrell Cass, a pediatric surgeon and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Fetal Center.

The operation will take place in two stages, involving teams of pediatric, urological, plastic, orthopedic, cardiac, and gynecological surgeons.

The separation team will begin the procedure, followed by the reconstruction team, which will complete the process.

In 1992, surgeons at Texas Children’s Hospital successfully separated Tiesha and Iesha Turner, who were one year old and shared a sternum, liver, intertwined intestines, and fused organs.

Conjoined twins occur in approximately one out of every 200,000 births, and many do not survive. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, around 40 to 60 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn, while approximately 35 percent live for only one day.

Survival rates for twins who are born alive and later undergo separation vary depending on how they are connected and which organs they share, the medical center explained.

The Mata family’s lives began to change in January, when a routine ultrasound revealed that Elysse Mata was expecting conjoined twins.

The family was referred to the Texas Children’s Hospital Fetal Center for specialized care.

Elysse and her husband, along with their 5-year-old son, relocated from Lubbock to Houston, where the girls were born on April 11.

The babies live in the hospital’s Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, which has become the center of the Mata family’s daily life.

Elysse spends at least seven hours at the hospital every day, leaving when it is time to pick up her son from school.

Her husband, John Mata, works full time and spends every weekend at the hospital with his daughters, staying close to them throughout their medical journey.

Dr. Cass said he expects each girl to have the opportunity to live independently and enjoy a good quality of life.

“It is likely that further reconstructive procedures may be needed in the future. Perhaps the biggest challenges may be orthopedic and helping them walk and develop a normal gait,” he said.

As Knatalye and Adeline prepare for the next stage of their journey, their family continues to hold on to hope. Behind every medical milestone are two little girls reaching for toys, responding to their parents’ voices, and growing day by day — reminding everyone that their story is about far more than a complex medical condition.

Source: dailymail