Mom gives update on conjoined twin girls

AURORA, Colo. — A woman who gave birth to conjoined twins at a Denver-area hospital says one of the babies has survived.

Amber McCullough delivered the twin girls by cesarean section on Wednesday, she told KARE-TV in Minneapolis. The mother is a Hastings, Minnesota, native and has been talking to the station about her ordeal.

McCullough told the station one of the twins, Hannah, is alive but in critical condition. The TV station did not report on the fate of twin Olivia, who was not expected to survive due to a heart defect.

Children’s Hospital Colorado said Thursday morning it could not confirm that the birth had happened.

The twins shared an abdomen, liver and intestinal tract. The girls had separate hearts and kidneys.

“I would like everyone to know, and for the message to be read that Hannah did survive the surgery. However, she is very critical and very delicate,” McCullough wrote to the station.

McCullough earlier said that Olivia was not expected to survive. Olivia’s heart had only a single ventricle and was missing valves.

McCullough chronicled her pregnancy with the twins online, writing on her Facebook page earlier this month, “We are embarking on a new future with much happiness, love, and sorrow.”

Because of the way the twins were attached, and the differences in their physical conditions, doctors were expected to try to save Hannah using a surgery called an EXIT procedure — Ex Utero Intrapartum Treatment — before cutting the umbilical cord. They would then separate the conjoined twins immediately.

Conjoined twins happen once every 200,000 live births, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center, which says between 40 to 60 percent arrive stillborn.

McCullough, who also has 6-year-old son, is divorced and became pregnant with the twins during another relationship. It wasn’t until her second trimester that she learned she was carrying conjoined twins. The relationship with the girls’ father ended shortly thereafter.

McCullough said she spent eight years in the U.S. Army, then went to law school and is now an attorney.

She has lived at the Ronald McDonald House in Aurora, near Children’s Hospital Colorado, since early August. Her stepmother is there, keeping her company and caring for her, and her son is expected to move there to be with her soon.