Now-Separated Twins Recovering Well

Aug. 9, 2006 — -- Erin and Jake Herrin's prayers have been answered.

Their 4-year-old twin daughters -- who were born joined at the abdomen -- are sleeping in separate beds for the first time after enduring a 26-hour surgery.

"I am so grateful to be their mother, and we are the proud parents of two separate little girls," Erin Herrin said on "Good Morning America" today.

Kendra and Maliyah Herrin were born practically facing each other. They shared a liver, a kidney, a pelvis, one set of legs, and part of their intestines.

Surgeons at Primary Children's Medical Center in Utah separated Kendra and Maliyah in a marathon surgery on Monday.

Each girl received one leg. Their liver and intestines were split; their bladders and their pelvic rings were reconstructed.

Kendra kept their one functioning kidney, while Maliyah was put on dialysis.

She will receive one of her mother's kidneys in a transplant operation in three months to six months.

Their operation was believed to be the first time surgeons had separated conjoined twins with a shared kidney, Primary Children's Medical Center doctors said.

The surgery was emotional for the Herrin clan as relatives endured sleepless night as the girls were separated.

Remarkably, there were no complications, which surprised even the surgeons.

Jake Herrin called his daughters' separation a rebirth, an exciting new chapter in their now-separate lives.

"Our babies are born. That's what it's like," he said.

Doctored warned that the girls' recovery would be a marathon, not a sprint.

The girls, surgeons said, have been through major trauma, and their little bodies will need time to heal from massive wounds.