"They want life, and they're going to fight for it."
A mother from California said this just before her two-year-old conjoined twins underwent high-risk separation and reconstructive surgeries on Wednesday.
Expressing her strong faith in God, Aida Sandoval, 46, said whatever happened after the operation, it would be God's will. "I have faith in God, and I know that if it's meant to be, it will be," she said as quoted by The Daily Mail.
Aida and her husband Arturo, 51, were subsequently rewarded for their faith when surgeons successfully separated their conjoined twins Eva and Erika after 17 hours of operation at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, California on Wednesday, The Sacramento Bee reported.
"They look amazing," Aida gushed upon seeing her twins with two separate bodies for the first time. The two girls were born in August 2014 fused together from the sternum down.
Aida said it feels like a dream seeing her daughters in two different beds. "It's kind of like – 'Where's your other half?' It's going to take a little getting used to," she said.
Arturo said he's wondering how his daughters would react when they wake up. "What are they going to do? How are they going to react?" he asked. The twins grew up into "talkative, vivacious girls who danced, jumped and crawled while maneuvering their sprawling, seven-limbed body," as described by The Sacramento Bee.
Lead surgeon Dr. Gary Hartman said the twins "did very well" after his team of about 50 physicians, nurses and operating room staff performed the complex procedure that started at 8 a.m. Tuesday and ended at 1 a.m. Wednesday.
"I'm very pleased; this is as good as we could have asked for," the doctor added.
Before they went into surgery, Erika and Eva shared a bladder, liver and three legs. Now, each girl has portions of their bladder, liver and small intestines. Each has one leg with the third leg removed, the Sandoval couple said on Wednesday.
Doctors at the hospital had calculated only a 30 percent chance of survival for one or both twins before the operation, which has successfully been done only a few hundred times before.
The Sandoval couple and their older children reportedly said a tear-filled prayer around the twins just before they were wheeled into the operating room.
Before Aida gave birth to the girls, the couple was urged to go for abortion when the doctors found out that she was carrying conjoined twins.
However, the Christian couple rejected the doctors' advice even though they knew the difficulties that lie ahead for them once the twins are born. The couple already had three kids in their 20s.
