Chelsea was 8 weeks and 3 days pregnant when the doctors came into the room and fell silent.
Then came the news: her daughters were conjoined. “We were in shock, we didn’t know what to think or how to feel”, she recalled on the program This Morning. When Callie and Carter were born in January 2017 in Idaho, they were given just 24 hours to live. For the first few hours, Chelsea couldn’t even see them: she was recovering from surgery, and nearly 18 hours passed before she met them. But the girls kept getting better, and one day she was able to take them home.
Today they are 9 years old, walk together, each controlling one leg, and have very different personalities. And Chelsea says that when they were babies, she and her partner, Nick, considered separating them so they wouldn’t remember it. The doctors advised them not to, and the couple chose to give them the option when they’re older and understand the risks.
“It’s their life and they’re living it; we’re just supporting them through the whole process”, she says. Their mother asks for just one thing: when the time comes, the decision should be theirs. What would you have done in her place?