andrea89's Journal

I remember like a month ago seeing in the news the twins Tatiana and Krista Hogan who are joined at the head and live in British Columbia, Canada. (My dad is visiting family there right now) I had read that the mother could have had an abortion early on, a couple or few weeks from the start of pregnancy and knowing that these kids would have difficult lives in a lot of ways, (no real privacy with boyfriends/friends, walking around and getting exercise would be extremely difficult or impossible, always being in an awkward position that could strain their necks, extreme risk if doctors tried to separate) I actually felt really angry with this mother. I thought she just wanted her *fame* because her kids would be so *different*. I couldn't believe that she didn't take the chance to abort at such an early stage. What I didn't realize until dad called me 15 minutes ago is that I am related to these little girls. Dad told me that I am apparently their cousin. I still don't know what to think about the situation. They are happy babies now and interact with people but I hope they aren't depressed later on in life, I hope they can somehow cope well with some of the extreme limitations they will have. The first thing my dad said over the phone is: "Oh I visited the twins" I said "what twins?" he tells me "the ones joined at the head, the little girls" I asked "HOW, and where?" He says "Don't you know? You're related to them, my sister was interviewed and other family" I'm really interested now to see the girls because my dad has seen them interacting for real and he says they seem happy. When one smiles the other one does too, when one girl is tickled the other one jumps. When one cried, a soother in the mouth of the other settled both. As the legs were tickled of one of the girls, the other girls' legs responded. One of the main worries of the doctors  about keeping the two together is Tatiana developing high blood pressure from filtering most of the blood through both girls.