A Mother's Hope

May 6, 2005 — -- This isn't Claudia Dogaru's first Mother's Day, but it will be a particularly special one. Dogaru will be with her twin daughters, Tatiana and Anastasia, at the Medical City Hospital campus in Dallas where an elite surgical team is preparing to separate the girls who were born conjoined at the head.

"They are at the phase where they want their mommy all the time ... and I'm glad to have that. I love them," Dogaru told "20/20."

And at 15 months, the girls have developed very different personalities, she said. "Anastasia, she is very active. She wants all the attention. She is the boss. She wants to walk. Tatiana is the quiet one. She accepts to be dragged by her sister. She has the most beautiful smile in the world. I love when she is smiling," Dogaru said of her girls.

Dogaru, a nurse, and her husband, Alin, a Byzantine Catholic priest, knew the girls' condition before they were born, but were determined to bring them into the world.

"I think that life is precious," Dogaru said. "Every child has a right to be born. It is not our job to take their life," she added.

From the start, the Dogarus, originally from Romania, were determined to find Anastasia and Tatiana the help they would need to live healthy and separate lives. But in Italy, where the family now lives, doctors gave them little hope.

"All the doctors said they will die. They will die soon. They didn't know exactly how much -- three months or three years. But they will die," Dogaru recalled.

But then the Dogaru family saw a report on television. Two Egyptian boys, Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim, joined at the head had been separated by a medical team in Dallas. Dogaru immediately reached out over the Internet and found Dr. Kenneth Salyer, a leader of the Dallas team and a renowned craniofacial specialist.

"They were intrigued and had been told locally in Italy that probably nothing could be done. So, they were desperate and looking for help," Salyer said.