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Florida Co-Joined Twins Separated

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JACKSONVILLE (CBSMiami/AP) — A pair of twins, who were cojoined for the first five months of their lives, remain in critical condition five days after they were separated.

Carter and Conner, who now sleep in separate cribs, shared a liver and small intestine. They were successfully separated last Thursday after a 12-hour operation by three surgeons, five anesthesiologists and 12 other staffers.

For parents Michelle Brantley and Bryan Mirabal, the upheaval in their lives was quickly joined by the fear and hope of having the twins successfully separated.

After the operation, they were all smiles.

"It was so awesome, walking up to the bed for the first time, and then it registered that I was just looking at Carter,"Mirabal said. "And then I thought, 'I have another baby over here too!'"

Five months into her pregnancy, Brantley's doctor delivered the news: Her twins were fused at the belly and lower chest.

"It was very overwhelming, upsetting and very sad," she said. "We prayed a lot and had family and support and we got through it."

On the day of Brantley's delivery, reality set it.

"It was like, there they are. It was very scary," Mirabal said.

Soon, doctors told the couple their boys would have a good chance of surviving separation surgery - Connor and Carter shared organs that can be separated.

The boys shared a liver, bile ducts and part of their small intestine. If they shared a heart or brain, fewer options were available, said Dr. Daniel Robie, chief of pediatric general surgery at Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville.

"We separate them and then reconstruct them so that they each have organs that are going to function normally," Robie said.

Still, there were obstacles. The doctors worried about too much blood loss while separating the liver, Robie said.

So the surgeons and their teams spent months preparing. They went through dry runs and created medical illustrations of the conjoined areas for study.

Weary but in good spirits, Brantley and Mirabal say they're starting to think about all the routine things new parents do. They are engaged and say the ordeal brought them closer together.

"We are starting to change around the house, getting cribs set up," said Mirabal, 26, who works as a house painter. "We hadn't started setting anything up because of what we were told could happen (in surgery)."

Brantley said they are going to celebrate birthdays and have a party each year to honor the date of the boys' separation.

"I'm keeping some of the conjoined clothes people have made them so I can show it to them when they're older," she said.

(TM and © Copyright 2015 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2015 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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