Cover

Title page

Chapter 1: Life-changing News

Chapter 2: Images of Hope

Chapter 3: An Unexpected Development

Chapter 4: London

Chapter 5: The Birth

Chapter 6: Meeting my Little Fighters

Chapter 7: Returning Home to Cork

Chapter 8: Announcing a Very Special Birth

Chapter 9: Meeting the Press

Chapter 10: A Community Unites

Chapter 11: Returning to London

Chapter 12: The Separation Surgery

Chapter 13: An Endless Day

Chapter 14: Apart—But Together Forever

Chapter 15: A Hero’s Welcome Home

Chapter 16: Tears and Joy

Chapter 17: One Year Later

Chapter 18: New Year, New Beginnings

List of Images

Images

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Support and Donations

Copyright

About the Authors

About Gill & Macmillan

‘I’m really worried about this scan,’ I confessed to the pleasant-faced sonographer as I lay back on a clinical hospital bed anticipating the sudden freeze of cold gel. I tried to ignore the gathering dread in my stomach as my two-year-old daughter, Iman, chatted to herself beside me in her pushchair. I had longed for this, my third child, and today I was to see my baby for the first time. I had done everything I could to promote a healthy pregnancy, but I couldn’t help feeling that something was very wrong. I shifted nervously on the bed as the placid sonographer smiled at me reassuringly and switched on the monitor. I closed my eyes for a moment as she traced the probe over the swell of my belly. I was afraid to breathe. Then it came, that terrible moment when I watched her expression slowly darken as a creeping, cold sweat inched its way down my spine. I could hear her trying to control the growing panic in her voice as she whispered, ‘I’m seeing something here I’ve never seen before,’ the colour draining from her face. ‘Your babies . . . they are joined.’

Those unimaginable words were to change my life forever.

I met my husband Azzedine in a hotel in Rathmines in March 1997. The first time I saw him it felt as if a thunderbolt had hit me. As soon as our eyes met there was this instant connection that seemed ancient. Azzedine, being Muslim, and from Algeria, insisted on quite a formal courtship; sometimes, when I was with him, it felt as if time had somehow wound back to a quieter, simpler age. He was sweet and protective, and so completely different from anyone I had ever met. I remember him cooking dinner for me in my Dublin apartment, and us spending hours discussing our hopes for the future, and those unborn babies we were yet to meet. Azzedine looked after me, but in many ways I looked after him too. Growing up in Algeria, he had seen some unspeakable things, and these haunted him, haunted his dreams, but I knew we could build a happy life together. We were together only a short few months before we began to talk about having children, and it was clear we both wanted them very much. I knew we would make great parents so, two and a half years later, in September 1999, we were married. It was a gorgeous day, the fairytale ending I had always dreamed of for us.

We moved to my homeplace, Cork, to build a life together and worked hard for the next number of years saving for that coveted mortgage deposit, before starting a family. Azzedine, a chef, worked long, crucifying hours without complaint, and I worked as a receptionist with Bowen Construction. I loved my job, but after my first child, Malika, was born in 2005 I knew I wanted to be with her all the time. Malika was two weeks overdue. When she finally arrived I could hardly believe how amazing she was; her tiny little body knew me instinctively, and I, like most Mums, felt I had finally done what I had been put on this earth to do. I remember the happiness we felt with our newborn. I knew I couldn’t leave her with a stranger, so, after much soul searching, I decided to hand in my notice and become a full-time mother. I loved being a Mum more than anything so two years later, on 17 June 2007, we had a second little girl, Iman. She was such an angelic child, delicate like a china doll. I adored her. We spent every waking minute together as a family; we went everywhere together, and were happiest in each other’s company.

When Iman was two years old we began to think about having a third child. I had always really enjoyed the time when the children were small, the newness of them, the smell of them. I knew Azzedine longed for a boy and, if I was honest, part of me did too. Both Malika and Iman were very girly, with their big brown eyes and their fairy-princess dresses. I pictured Azzedine playing football with our handsome son, a miniature version of himself, and so, quietly, I hoped. We tried for a while, and I recall the gut-wrenching disappointment of negative pregnancy tests, but then, one bright and glorious Saturday afternoon, I discovered I was pregnant again. I remember the sweet rush of happiness at seeing that welcome blue line. I was unable to conceal this wonderful news so my father excitedly bundled me and the two girls into the car and headed straight for the Bosun Restaurant in Monkstown, Co. Cork, where Azzedine worked. I felt like a giddy teenager on that gorgeous summer’s day; I couldn’t wait to give him the good news.

I had always loved being pregnant. I loved everything about it—the growing swell of my tummy, the cravings, feeling that life grow inside me. I relished the hustle and bustle leading up to having the baby, and finally the quiet joy of bringing that tiny bundle home, full of expectation and promise. I could never put a number on the babies we might have, and I always imagined a large gang of raggle-taggle kids around us. I could think of nothing more perfect than growing old together with all of our children and grandchildren by our sides.

Finally, I saw the sign for Monkstown, and as my excitement grew we pulled up outside the restaurant. I called Azzedine on his mobile and begged him to come out, just for a moment. Saturday evening was the busiest night of the week for him, so it was not easy, but eventually he managed to sneak away. Almost as soon as he approached the car, I showed him the pregnancy stick. We were like teenagers embracing and laughing in the sunlight; it was such a wonderful moment. Everything felt so light—so full of hope and possibility. As I pulled away Azzedine jokingly shouted after me, ‘If this is another girl, I’m going back to my mother!’, a peal of laughter coming from his open mouth and the tiny dream of our new baby beginning to nestle in our hearts. This was to be one of our last happy days.

I can remember the first time I began to feel unsettled about my pregnancy. I had taken the pregnancy test out of the bathroom cabinet to put it with the other mementoes I had been keeping for my children when I accidentally dropped it. My heart sank as it crashed onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. When I bent to pick it up I noticed the positive sign had turned to a negative. Try as I might, I couldn’t get it to change. I knew it was irrational and silly, but it unsettled me. Physically, I also felt very different with this pregnancy: I felt unwell and tired, and not as full of life as I had done with the girls. I dismissed this as possibly being down to the baby being a different sex, but for some reason worry began to grow even as my baby formed inside me. I recall telling a close friend, Alex, how I was absolutely terrified to go for my first scan; I had a feeling something was wrong this time. I fought back tears as I confided in her one lovely afternoon while our carefree children chased each other through the trees. She did her best to reassure me, just putting it down to nerves, and we dropped the subject, but still this niggling feeling bothered me for the first few months. During my previous two pregnancies I had been excited about the initial scans. I would go into them full of positivity, confident in the expectation that I would see this perfectly forming foetus on the screen, after which I expected to go home with my wonderful, if a little indecipherable, scan. Now I know that when it comes to your pregnancy, you can’t take anything for granted.

My first, 12-week, scan fell on a hot July day. I vividly recall everything about the afternoon that changed our lives irrevocably. There we were, all four of us, in the waiting room of Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) excitedly anticipating seeing the latest addition to our little family. I remember such minutiae about it: half-heartedly watching the ‘Ellen’ talk show on the scratchy waiting room TV; Azzedine going up and down to the water tank constantly refilling my plastic cup, as my drinking a lot of water would mean we would get a perfectly clear image of the new baby. I had brought little bags of sweets for the children to keep them quiet and, as we waited, butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Finally, it came to our turn; we were about to get our first glimpse of bump number three! I never smoked, I don’t drink, and I had taken my folic acid, so I knew that there should be nothing to worry about, but still this niggling worry-worm gnawed at me from inside. Just as my name was called, Malika said she needed to use the bathroom. I was nervous to go in without Azzedine. I really didn’t want him to miss anything, but he reassured me he would not be long, so I went into that awful room with two-year-old Iman in her pushchair.

A pleasant sonographer, who introduced herself as Kate, told me to lie back on the bed so she could begin to prepare me. I remember the cold gel on my tummy, and the expectation of it all. I really wanted to wait for Azzedine to come back in, but the sonographer said we should go right ahead and get started, so I nodded in agreement. I told her I had felt quite frightened for weeks about what the scan would reveal. She looked at me, confused. I wasn’t really sure why, but I just had this ominous feeling I could not shake. Smiling at me, she reassured me everything would be OK, that it was just nerves. She flipped the switch on the monitor and reached towards my belly with the probe of the scanner.

I recall that all-seeing eye sweeping along the length of my belly and within seconds I knew something was very wrong. Even now, I’m back there, in that hateful room, watching her face completely drain of colour, the sudden look of distress, the confusion at what she saw. ‘What’s wrong with my baby?’ I demanded, growing increasingly alarmed. At first she wouldn’t tell me, she said she wanted to wait for Azzedine to come in, but I pleaded with her. ‘Please!’ I half yelled, ‘you have to tell me now. I can’t wait. What is wrong with my baby?’ She could hear the rising panic in my voice. ‘Is it dead?’ I shouted in disbelief, at the suddenness of the situation. My mind began to race. I tried to imagine all the possibilities, the worst being that the baby had died inside me; there was no heartbeat, no life. Then suddenly she said, ‘No, no, it’s not that. I am seeing twins here,’ still sounding strange and uneasy. At first I was overjoyed; I thought perhaps she had just looked worried because she hadn’t expected to see two babies. ‘But that is just fantastic!’ I told her, my poor heart skipping with joy for that one fleeting, blissful moment. ‘Twins’—even the sound of the word made me think of matching babygrows, bottles and two little cherubic heads, but I could see her expression hadn’t changed.

I could tell she was about to say something I really didn’t want to hear. I wanted to throw my hands over my ears and run out of there. ‘I’m very sorry to tell you this,’ she said, her face flooding with sympathy, ‘but I am seeing something here I have never seen before. Your babies . . . they are joined.’ The words seemed to hang in the air for a moment as if a firework had gone off and traces of it still remained, suspended, lifeless. The room began to spin at a nauseating pace. I held on to the sides of the bed for support. My mind was attempting to grasp what had just been said to me, but terror had a grip around my throat, choking me. A roaring darkness rushed towards me in the stillness. I felt as if I were in someone else’s terrifying nightmare, watching it, frozen, liminal. I could hear the sonographer say something about wanting to find an obstetrician. ‘What I am seeing on this scan I have never seen before,’ she said. ‘I am really going to have to get a second opinion.’ Her disembodied voice seemed to echo in my head. In the space of a few minutes our lives had been turned upside-down. Everyone had been so excited in the waiting room, and now I was desperate to crawl on my knees back to that moment before the monitor was turned on and revealed our broken dreams.

Just then Azzedine walked into the room with Malika; he strolled into complete chaos. He opened the door to find his little girl screaming in terror, his wife wailing, and a look of despair on the sonographer’s face. I had my knees pulled right up to my chest as this crushing news throbbed relentlessly in my head. He immediately started to panic and repeat over and over, ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ I couldn’t see the screen, because a fog had come down over everything; neither could I see through my hot tears. I had never cried like that in my whole life; it was a low, wailing sound, a mother grieving for her unborn children. I felt my heart actually break. ‘The babies, the babies are joined!’ I shouted at my terrified husband, the words like shards of glass on my tongue. I could tell he didn’t take this in, did not want to understand. I wished I could travel back through time to silence those words and never hear them again, but I knew I never could.

The sonographer asked us to wait, and left the room. I remember the pain at seeing Malika burst into tears, while Iman wailed and wailed in her pushchair. I just held on to my husband in terror. I tried to tell him what was going on. I had watched documentaries about conjoined twins in the past, so I knew what it meant. I knew the word more associated with them was ‘Siamese’, a word I grew to hate; even the sound of it on my tongue makes me sick.

For what seemed like an eternity we waited in that dark room—it must have been up to an hour—with this hideous truth between us as if a thief had crept into our lives amid the gloom, stealing our hopes, drowning our happiness. My bladder was so full, having drunk so much water, that it began to ache; I left to find a toilet. I remember trying to pull myself together in the bathroom and catching a glimpse of my horrified, pale face and puffy eyes. I begged God to please, please let the doctors be wrong. I longed for someone to tell me it had all been a giant error; that they had looked at the scan again and everything was OK.

I went back to my frightened little girls; all I wanted to do was bundle their little bodies together and run out of that place. I had to take Iman out of her buggy to breastfeed her amid all that madness and I remember how even this simple act of mothering made my broken heart ache. It seemed so natural, and yet there, on the screen, was this inescapable image of our future. As I fed one child I was also mourning for the two I feared I might never mother.

With Iman calmed, I tried to reassure Malika, so I just told her we were sad because something was wrong with one of the babies. We had always tried to be as honest as possible with the children, but it was hard to see her scared little face. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the sonographer arrived back with an obstetrician, Dr Keelin O’Donoghue. I was comforted that it was a woman and, although she did her best to reassure me, as soon as she started to scan again she immediately saw the babies were joined; there was absolutely no doubt. She looked me straight in the face and told me they were joined from the chest down, and it was likely they shared a heart and all the vital organs. She also told me there was a strong possibility that both babies could die. ‘Both babies could die’—how a mother is ever expected to take these words and allow them in I will never understand. I was then given even more shattering news: if the babies didn’t die, and I went full-term, my own life would be at risk during the delivery, and I also faced the risk of a hysterectomy. This latest information was like a tsunami of pain crashing over me; none of it was really sinking it. The obstetrician told us we could go home, but we would have to come back the following Tuesday, and indeed once a week from that point forward for more scans. I just sat there with this knowledge and felt it seep into me like a poison. Mechanically, I texted my father and asked him to come to the hospital, so I could tell him what had happened. They let him into the darkened scan room; the news absolutely devastated him. I really didn’t want to leave the hospital that day, didn’t want to walk out those doors and bring that awful truth into my life, into our home, into our hearts.

We drove home in silence. I went into the house, closed the front door, pulled down the wooden shutters and headed straight for the living room, where I slowly died inside. I stared for hours at the scanned image of my sons, the perfect love-heart shape their little bodies made. I couldn’t eat; I couldn’t drink; I didn’t want to see anyone, talk to anyone. All I did was sit on the sofa as the clock ticked and I sobbed uncontrollably. My face hurt, my heart ached with sadness and my head pounded. I remember Malika coming in and out and rubbing my head, or bringing down a pillow or one of her blankets to put over me, and it broke my heart all over again. Azzedine was absolutely devastated, but had to return to work the very next day. I know it killed him to leave me, but what could he do? I spent many days alone with that truth, endless days running into nights with those two precious little girls like watchful ghosts. It may have been summer outside, but it was winter in our home.

I dreaded returning to the hospital; the place I had previously associated with the happy birth of my healthy little girl Iman had now become a looming vision of hell, a prison from which I could not escape my own crushing truth. The sheer agony of having to walk back through those doors was unbearable. We knew we couldn’t do this alone, so I asked my father to call his sister Val to see if she would come and care for the girls on Tuesday whilst we returned to the hospital for my next scan. When she first heard I was going for a scan she was thrilled and excited as she had not known I was pregnant. My poor father broke down as he told her the pregnancy didn’t look good. Val didn’t ask for any more information; she just accepted that help was required. So, the following Tuesday she called to our home with my cousin’s wife Sinead. They took one look at me and knew I had been to hell and back. I fell into their arms and told them my terrible news. I dreaded that next scan. Later that day as I walked towards the hospital everything began to swim in front of me, my legs turning to jelly. I was having a panic attack. I remember the look of worry on Azzedine’s face as I sat on the ground taking huge, gasping breaths, confusion and pity on the faces of those first-time Dads and happy relatives going in to visit their bright and shiny newborns. I was so weak from not eating that I could barely walk; my lips cracked and bled from dehydration. I never wanted to go into that awful room again and be forced to see an image of my babies’ future on that unforgiving screen.

Looking back now I know that during those first days I was in denial. I had even managed to convince myself that the sonographer and the obstetrician had got it all wrong. I imagined their apologies and sighs of relief when they turned on the scanner the second time and realised their folly. I desperately tried to tell myself that perhaps they had made a mistake, but in my heart I knew it to be true. My worried father quizzed the doctors and asked them why, if my life was in danger, could they not intervene, but they told us they could get involved only if I presented to the hospital in a serious and life-threatening condition. As she had been present at the first scan, and had heard what had been said, Malika began to believe that if the babies died inside me I would also be lost to her. I remember the anxiety in her little voice as she repeatedly asked me, ‘Mummy, if the babies die in your tummy, will you die too?’ I tried to reassure her as best I could that the babies were going to live, but it devastated me to see the furrow of worry in her babyish brow.

Despite my own enormous fear, I never contemplated terminating the pregnancy. There was never even a moment that I considered quashing any chance those babies had at life. I remember thinking even if there would be only one little kick, one tiny flutter, I was going to feel it; even if we were going to have those little twins with us for half an hour, I was going to know them; even if we were going to hold them only one precious time, I was going to have that hold. I understood there was a high risk that the babies would either be stillborn or would die within the first 24 hours, but I also knew I was their mother and I was going to fight for them. After all, if I wasn’t going to, who would? And, in the end, those little boys fought enough for all of us. From my own research I discovered the survival rate for conjoined twins was very small; that many of those tiny lives that managed to survive a complex and difficult delivery died after 24 hours, so I knew, and Azzedine knew, that this was a one in a million chance, but there was that tiny chance, as tiny as their little bird-beating hearts in the palm of my hand.

Every morning I had to relive the agony and in those blissful moments between sleep and waking I would always forget the babies were joined. I would rub my pregnant belly and feel the joy of life within me and then that deadly wave would come crashing through the windows: the razor-sharp pain of truth. I asked at the hospital whether other parents of conjoined twins would see me, and talk about their experiences, but to no avail. Perhaps the outcomes of their pregnancies had been so torturously bleak they hadn’t wanted to open up old wounds again, and I understand that, but it was such a hopeless and lonely time. I felt nobody understood what I was going through, and felt helpless all the time. All light had left my life. The only thing the doctors seemed to know for sure was that my babies might not live; I might never hold them, name them, and they might never call me Mummy. My future seemed to have been stolen from me by this awful truth, and I dreaded each miserable dawn as it brought me closer and closer to what might be.

Conjoined twins are identical twins whose bodies are joined in the womb. Approximately 40 to 60 per cent arrive in the world stillborn. They are exceedingly rare, with an incidence of about one in 250,000 live births. They can be joined at the chest, head, abdomen or hip. Approximately 30 per cent of conjoined twins survive only one day. In fact, the overall survival rate of conjoined twins is somewhere between 5 and 25 per cent. For some reason, female siblings seem to have a much greater chance of survival than male twins; almost 75 per cent of all live births of conjoined twins are girls. As they are genetically identical, the twins are always the same sex. They develop from the same fertilised egg, and they share the same amniotic cavity and placenta.

Twins are formed in the womb one of two ways: either a woman releases two eggs instead of the usual one, or she produces only one egg that divides after fertilisation. If she releases two eggs, which are fertilised by separate sperm, she has fraternal twins. However, when a single fertilised egg divides and separates, she has identical or paternal twins. In the case of conjoined twins, a woman produces only a single egg, which does not fully divide after fertilisation. The developing embryo starts to split into identical twins during the first few weeks after conception, but unfortunately stops before the process is completed. The partially separated egg then develops into a conjoined foetus. There is no typical case when it comes to conjoined twins—where the babies are joined, the number and type of organs shared—and how healthy the babies are at birth varies widely.

During those first few weeks of grieving I felt as if I was merely existing rather than living. My GP, Dr Lynda O’Callaghan, called to see me almost every day and was the first of many members of the medical profession whose unbelievable kindness got me through the most difficult year of my life. The day after my second scan I called two of my friends who have children in Malika’s class so I could tell them what had happened. Many of the other Mums at Malika’s school had been aware I was going for my first scan and knew how excited I was about it. I just couldn’t face being asked about it and really wanted a way out of having to discuss my devastating news with them. My friends Joan and Carmel called the next day and when I answered the door they could see from my gaunt face and hollow eyes that something terrible had happened. I told them my babies were joined and might not live; they were speechless. Azzedine was at work and I was alone with the girls so I desperately needed someone to listen and be there for me. They promised they would make sure the other Mums wouldn’t ask me any probing questions, for which I was deeply grateful. It felt good just to be able to tell someone that I was carrying conjoined twins, to say those words that had been pressing down on my chest for a week, dragging me under like a diving bell.

I also decided to contact our family GP, Dr Joe Dillon. At a time when I believed I couldn’t trust many people with our shocking secret, he was someone I felt I could speak to in confidence. He was the doctor who had cared for me since I was a baby, and I trusted him implicitly. I called him up one day and told him about the babies. Dr Dillon informed me an old college friend of his, working at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London, specialised in the separation of conjoined twins, Mr Edward Kiely. He told me Mr Kiely was a world-leading consultant paediatric surgeon who had been managing conjoined twins at the hospital since the eighties. I couldn’t believe this; it seemed as if someone had thrown my drowning hopes a lifeline. Dr Dillon told me to phone the hospital and ask him for advice.

Eventually I plucked up the courage to take the first step. I was extremely nervous as I dialled the number and listened to the droning overseas ringtone. Eventually I managed to get through to his secretary. By chance the man himself walked into his office while I was trying to explain my situation; the next thing I heard was this reassuring voice on the end of the phone. I struggled not to break down as I told him the basic details of how my twins were thought to share all the major organs, including the heart. I pleaded with him to be honest with me as to their chances. I felt my own desperate heart sink as he explained that as the babies shared a heart they had little chance of survival. I could hardly respond to this devastating blow. Before I hung up, Mr Kiely reassured me, and gave me his mobile number and email address just in case I needed anything. I thanked him with the last ounce of composure left in my trembling body, hung up the phone and slid down the wall onto the kitchen floor in tears; this was not what I wanted to hear. My tiny glimmer of hope was flickering and slowly dying.

From that point on I began to fall further and further into a grim place. I had always taken pride in my appearance; now I barely dressed myself in the mornings. I lived in my dressing gown, sloping around the dark house, feeling like a ghost haunting my own corridors. The only time I left home was to attend my weekly scans. I dreaded seeing the babies’ image on the screen, dreaded hearing more bad news. I would often ask the sonographer to turn the monitor away from my view, unable to look at my growing boys bound in what then seemed like a deadly embrace. A new sonographer, Marion Cunningham, who specialised in multiple births, took over my care at CUMH, and she, along with my patient obstetrician, Dr Keelin O’Donoghue, watched and waited with us week after week as the babies grew together inside me. They had told me it was usually in the first trimester that conjoined twins were lost, so we just waited, hour by hour, ominous day after ominous day, for that terrible event to occur. I would get a sudden, sharp pain or cramp, and I would think: ‘This is it; I’m losing them.’ I was walking around with a time bomb in my womb, and I waited for it to go off in my darkened home as the clock ticked on the wall. I was terrified all the time that my babies would slip away.

By this stage September was fast approaching, and it was almost time for Malika to go back to school. All summer long my patient girl had watched her mother fall apart. Her summer holiday had consisted of nothing but pain and sorrow, as the sun slowly set on our family’s happiness. I realised the week before she was due to go back to school that she had neither books nor uniform, so I knew I had to get up off the couch and get my little girl ready.

One Saturday afternoon I finally worked up the will to get dressed, put Iman’s pushchair in the car, and headed towards Cork City with my girls to do some back-to-school shopping. Our first stop was a Mothercare store on St Patrick’s Street. Pregnant and weak, I struggled with the buggy, so I left it unattended for a moment in order to get some shoes for Malika. On my return, I realised with horror that someone had snatched my purse. That was the first time I had been out in public in weeks; it had taken every ounce of my remaining will to leave the house. I knew the ticket for the car park had also been in my purse and I became overwhelmed with grief. I just burst into tears in the store. The Gardaí arrived and I remember telling them through my hysteria that I was pregnant with these babies that were not going to live, that I was in town with my two children and I couldn’t get to my car, and I had no money to get home. All the money I had for Malika’s things was gone. The Gardaí drove us back to the car park and helped us to get the car out, for which I was extremely grateful, but I felt a debilitating helplessness and frustration. I wanted to scream at the world ‘Why me?’ When I finally got home I thought to myself: ‘I am never leaving this house again.’ All I wanted to do was to stay in my cocoon of grief and mourn for my babies, for my family’s dreams.

I was booked in for another scan a few days later in Cork with a Dr Orla Franklin, a heart specialist who had been sent down from Dublin to examine the heart the doctors believed my babies shared. When I was first notified of this appointment, it filled me with dread; I was 20 weeks pregnant, and dreading even more horrifying news. We drove up to the hospital in silence, fear tightening its grip around my throat as we neared the sprawling campus. When the scan eventually got underway we braced ourselves for the worst. I said to Dr Franklin, ‘Whatever happens today, there is one thing I really want to know, and that is the sex of my babies.’ I just wanted to know if the twins were boys or girls, regardless of their shared heart, or their shared organs, or any other unfathomable and distressing medical information we had been given up to that point. These were my babies, and I wanted to know them. I told Dr Franklin that I thought they were little boys. The doctors felt this would be highly unlikely as more than 70 per cent of conjoined twins were female and the survival rate for boys was very low, but in my heart I knew they were little boys: my two Little Fighters. I knew Azzedine and I had been longing for a little boy so much that there was a chance. I had already picked out names for them just in case, and regardless of the outcome I was excited to find out the sex. Azzedine, however, was not thinking along these lines at all; in fact, he feared the twins would be the boys he had longed for so dearly. The very thought of that dream being dangled before him and then cruelly snatched away filled him with despair.

Finally, Dr Franklin turned off the machinery and sat us down to speak to us about her findings. The news she gave us that day was to change everything. The babies did not share a heart; in fact they had one each! It seemed as if a shaft of blinding light had burst through that darkened room and warmed my frozen heart. This meant the twins had, albeit small, a better chance of surviving, and that was probably the best news I had ever heard. But there was more to come. Dr Franklin also told me that I was, in fact, carrying two boys—a revelation that produced in me the sweetest sorrow. I think I experienced the whole spectrum of human emotion simultaneously. I cried as I rubbed the swell of my tummy, and dared to dream that I may someday hold my little boys. I could see Azzedine crying quietly in the corner. He couldn’t understand why I had found such hope in what we had been told. I said to him, ‘I’ve just found out I am carrying two little boys, and they are going to be absolutely beautiful. I have already picked out names for them that I know you are going to love!’ Azzedine looked at me completely bewildered. I explained to him that I wanted to name the boys Hassan, meaning prince, and Hussein, meaning handsome prince. Some years previously I had watched a documentary with Azzedine on war-torn Afghanistan. I vividly recall one particular family, who had been living in dire poverty amid terrible atrocities. They had nothing between them and the elements but a ragged tent, and yet they seemed so completely happy because they had these precious little twin boys called Hassan and Hussein. Even though they had nothing, in my eyes they had everything.

Azzedine, however, was looking at our situation in a completely different light. To him, we were pregnant with conjoined babies—these two boys who were not going to live—and his heart was broken from the grief of it all, a grief from which he didn’t believe he would ever recover. But I was having these boys, my sons. From that point on I began to make myself believe, day in and day out, that they were going to live against the odds. All I could think about was how I was going to do everything I could to bring that precious cargo safely into this world. One day I was going to see them happy and free, see them playing like other children, see them talk to one another, running wild with their sisters, swimming like little silvery fish in the sea. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I had spent eight weeks grieving for these babies, who were to be lost to us, but then, on the joyous day I discovered they had two hearts, everything changed. From that day on I began to call these miraculous boys my ‘Little Fighters’. Everyone around me had been so negative, so down about the complications—they believed this was just one long, living nightmare, which would ultimately end with their tiny lifeless bodies—whereas now I had wonderful hope shining through the chinks. The golden light of it dappled everything around me, and gave me strength to continue on that difficult journey. I went home that day and opened up the shutters in my home, threw open the windows and loosened the chains around my heart. I saw this as a chance, and thought: ‘I am going to fight for these two.’ I dared to let that elusive hope back into our homes, our lives and our hearts.

I awoke the following morning and decided to take my two girls to Dublin Zoo by train. Their whole summer had been shrouded in grief and darkness, and I wanted them to have at least one happy memory. Azzedine thought this a terrible idea. He was worried I would miscarry while I was on the train, but I was determined to give my children at least one day out. I said to him, ‘These are my two Little Fighters, Azzedine, and they are not going to die!’ I was convinced I was carrying two healthy boys who were going to live, going to defy everyone and everything. I could tell that Azzedine was worried that I was in denial, but I didn’t care. I took the girls to the zoo that day. It was their first time on a train, and they were very excited, grinning and singing all the way. My aunt Marie and her children Stephen and Zachary, who live in Dublin, met us at the train station. Marie and I exchanged an emotional embrace; it was our first time meeting since I had told her about the twins eight weeks earlier. I remember our children running and playing and the warmth of their laughter felt like sunshine on my face. The joy of them being free, and running wild. It felt bizarre that in the space of 24 hours everything had changed, and I no longer felt like a ghost in my own life. Happiness began to run once again in my veins. From then on I decided to eat healthily and to get eight hours sleep a night. I threw off that awful dressing gown that had been my shroud and crawled out of my hollow shell. I was determined to get back to where I was before this hurricane hit our lives, smashing all that we held dear to pieces. I decided to phone Mr Kiely in London to tell him that the boys had two hearts, and asked him again for his opinion. This time he told me that was very positive news, and now, perhaps, CUMH could formally refer us to GOSH. It was the happy news I had been waiting to hear; it was hope.

As the weeks went on I began to really get to know my boys: Hassan, my quiet twin, was to my left, while Hussein, the boisterous one, was to my right. I could feel their distinct personalities even in the womb. Hussein was always fussing and moving on my right, while my happy Hassan was, as he is to this day, tranquil and sleepy. Little by little things got back to normal, but as the pregnancy became more visible it became harder to hide it from people. Each time somebody congratulated me, it felt like salt in a wound. I spent a lot of time just asking God over and over ‘Why me?’ What had I done wrong? I did everything I was supposed to do. We had planned this pregnancy carefully. What did I do that was so bad that I deserved this punishment? And that was exactly what it felt like, punishment. One day a very close friend and neighbour, Betty, whom I had told about the twins, arrived at my home to visit me. She was expecting a baby, but she was such a supportive friend and so mindful of my feelings that she found it hard to share her wonderful news with me. I could tell straight away she was struggling to tell me something. I eventually guessed what it was, and asked her if she was pregnant. We shed tears that day as I congratulated her; Betty had been nervous about telling me but I reassured her that I was fine, that I wanted her to enjoy her pregnancy. I begged her not to feel sad for me, because no matter what, I too was going to be a Mum regardless of how much time I was going to have with those precious babies.

One of the most painful things I had to learn to accept during this difficult time was just how lonely it could be and just how little support Azzedine and I had. As my scans continued, week in and week out, I would stay up into the early hours of the morning looking at pictures of other conjoined twins on the internet, wondering what my babies would look like, my eyes watering from the glare of the computer screen and the sting of my tears. Azzedine hated this; he did not want to see what I saw. He thought what I was doing was unhealthy, but I felt powerless. I wanted to know what we were facing. I knew no set of conjoined twins ever looked the same, so I would have to wait until the delivery to see what my little babies would look like, wait to see if they would ever breathe, or cry out for their Mummy. When I would ask Azzedine why he thought this had happened to us, and why we were being punished, he would say ‘Whatever God gives to us, we have to accept.’ I felt like shaking him when he said this. It angered me. I thought it a ridiculous concept, an impossible faith. We simply didn’t deserve this; there was no justice or order to it. It was chaos. I didn’t understand his way of thinking at all. Later, the very first time I held their precious bodies, I understood it perfectly.

During my second pregnancy, with Iman, I had discovered a website about 3D, ultrasound imaging. I remember being really excited when I read that the scan produced a live, 3D image of your baby in the womb and afterwards you could go home with some digital stills and a DVD to show your family. The scans, according to the website, could capture everything from a yawn to a stretch to the precious beating of the baby’s heart inside the womb. It had been too late by the time I discovered this when I was pregnant with Iman, so when I found out I was pregnant again I phoned up a company called Baby Scan in Ballincollig to ask them at what stage I should come in. They told me that between 24 and 30 weeks was the best time for a clear image so I had been very much looking forward to booking one, but when at 12 weeks we were given our shattering news, obviously this took a back seat. I didn’t really think about it again for a long time. In fact, the very thought of seeing these babies, whom I was sure I was going to lose, chilled me. But, after the 20-week scan, when I found out my boys each had a heart, I began to consider it as an option again. I really wanted to have a DVD’DVD’