When Maggie Altobelli found out she was pregnant, she was excited.
She and her husband, Dom, couldn’t wait for the moment that they would get to hold their baby in their arms and raise him or her with much love and care.
And then, during the 20-week ultrasound, they found out they were expecting not one, but two babies.
At the same time, they found out that their babies were conjoined in the abdomen.
“That’s all right, we’ll just separate them,” was Maggie’s instant thought.
But separating conjoined twins is not as easy as it might sound. In fact, carrying twins is a high-risk pregnancy in its own right, imagine when the babies are conjoined.
And, besides that, statistics show that, sadly, most babies like this don’t survive.
But Maggie and Dom wouldn’t give up on their little miracles.
So, they moved from Chicago to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to receive specialized treatment.
After surpassing all the obstacles and overcoming the difficulties that arose during pregnancy, the twins were born in November 2020, and, as their parents said, they were perfect for them.
They already had names since Maggie and Dom wanted the babies to feel alive even from when they were in their mom’s belly.
“I just thought in order to normalize this pregnancy and make them live, we need to give them names,” Maggie told People. “And I told Dom we could change them later, but their names, I’ve already picked them out, and they’re Hope and Faith.”
Little Hope and Faith were brought into the world and they were now a reality for their parents who had spent so many months hoping for them.
“They’ve reached a new chapter,” Maggie recalls her husband saying to her. “Let’s call them Addy Hope and Lily Faith.”
The twins spent the next ten months of their lives preparing for the upcoming separation surgery, and so did the doctors that would be performing the separation.
One month before the girls turned one year old, they were given the green light to get separated.
Everybody knew it would be a long surgery, and a nerve-wracking one for the parents and family that were waiting for the doctors to come out of the operation room.
That’s why Maggie and Dom had already given a book for nurses to fill with their favorite stories from the girls, and that’s what they read during the wait.
Ten hours later, they received the good news.
“Addy and Lily have become two separate girls,” the doctors announced.
The parents just couldn’t hold back their tears when they heard the good news.
“I just fell to the floor,” recalls Maggie. “Everybody was just crying and sobbing. There was so much joy.”
Less than two months later, Addy and Lily were allowed to return home to Chicago, where they are now getting back to their normal life.
The girls are already developing their personalities, with their mom explaining:
“Lily is very chill. She’s very observant and you have to really work for her love and trust. And then Addy is just very chatty,” she adds. “She loves everybody who comes into the room.”
Watch Maggie and Dom talk about their miracles in the video below.
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