Conjoined Twins Are Separated After 27 Hours Of Life-Threatening Surgery

Life is such a mysterious and wonderful thing. Day in and day out, we can never truly know what to expect. Most people try to organize their lives to be as predictable as possible because, realistically, none of us like constant surprises, especially if they can be bad ones. That's why childbirth is so amazing. There's not much we can do to change the course of childbirth, but we can always prepare for whatever the outcome is going to be. Take twins, for example. While a lot of people don't expect twins when trying to get pregnant, they can still prepare and adapt for their eventual arrival, though not all things are that simple.

Meet the McDonald family

The McDonalds, like many other families, look like a happy family.

They even had a beautiful son, Aza, but there was something that set their family apart from other families.

Meet the twins.

Anias and Jadon were born conjoined, but they were conjoined at the tops of their heads.

Conjoined twins aren't really a new thing.

However, the location they were connected to one another made their circumstances significantly different than most.

Other conjoined twins are still able to walk.

Whereas Anias and Jadon would likely never be able to do so, given they are connected at the tops of their heads.

Enter Dr. Goodrich.

Dr. Goodrich is above and beyond other surgeons when it comes to separating conjoined twins, given his amazing track record.

Prior to the mid-'80s, there was a horrible belief.

Doctors would go into surgery for conjoined twins with the mindset that one should be sacrificed so the other could live.

Thankfully, Dr. Goodrich changed all that.

He pioneered the field and performed his first craniopagus surgery (separating from the skull) surgery 12 years ago. Since then, he has separated five more pairs of conjoined twins. His method consists of a slow and easy process, splitting one long surgery into multiple smaller operations.

Even with his amazing track record, this would prove to be the most difficult surgery.

Dr. Goodrich spent significant amounts of time preparing and mapping out the veins within the twins' heads, but the surgery would still be a tough one. The parents, Nicole and Christian, hoped for the best as their babies went into surgery.

After a grueling 22 hours, there was finally good news.

One of their sons, Jadon, had safely come out of surgery.

Five hours later, Anias came out.

Anias' surgery was significantly longer because the twins shared ~2 inches (5.5cm) of brain tissue with each other, but Anias' portion was bit more difficult to handle than his brother's

Thankfully, both of the babies came out in good condition.

While there still lies a long road to recovery for the two boys, the hardest part is out of the way. Here's to a quick and easy recovery for the McDonald family! 

h/t CNN