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Ella and Eliza Fuller, formerly conjoined twins who were attached at the abdomen, have celebrated their first birthday.
They are officially toddlers and their mom, Sandy Fuller, celebrated her “miracle babies" on Instagram.
“Happy birthday to my sweet girls,” she wrote in the post accompanying a carousel of their adorable snaps.
“My heart is filled with so much gratitude, especially today. Ella & Eliza, you girls have no idea what an impact you each have had in so many lives thus far! I love you so much.”
Sandy and her husband, Jesse, learnt that their twins were conjoined when she was three months pregnant.
“Four weeks after we found out there were twins, we confirmed that they were conjoined,” Sandy said in a previous interview. “We were shocked,” Jesse added.
They met with a team of experts at Texas Children’s Hospital to prepare for the birth.
“That’s kind of what helped the process because we’ve had time to have people be involved in the planning,” Jesse told Today.com.
"It was kind of a blessing and a curse finding out that early because we’ve had so much time to think about it.”
The girls were delivered via Caesarean section and dubbed the “hugging twins", as they were conjoined at the abdomen.
“They each had their own liver, and then it just fused together at where they met,” Jesse said. “So that was a blessing as well.”
READ MORE| These conjoined twins have such a close bond that they refuse to be separated
The good news was that the girls didn’t share a heart or any other vital organs, but doctors were unsure if they'd develop any other connections. Fortunately, the girls' scans didn't change, and they were scheduled for a separation surgery when they reached four months old.
It took a team of 17 to successfully separate Ella and Eliza – but the twins remain inseparable, and their older sister, Emi (3), dotes on them.
While the girls are identical in appearance, they're very different individuals, says Sandy – "Eliza is the introvert while Ella is the extrovert".
“You can look at them and you would never think they were conjoined eight months ago,” Sandy says.
SOURCES: PEOPLE.COM, TODAY.COM
