24 July,2010 07:51 AM IST | | Agencies
Mother of formerly-conjoined Bangladeshi twins Trishna and Krishna visits her daughters in Australia for the first time since their separation, in a joyous reunion
As so often happens in times of high emotion, the adults were overwhelmed and the child came to their rescue.
So it was when the Bangladeshi mother of surgically-separated twins Trishna and Krishna enjoyed an emotional reunion with the daughters she had feared would not survive.
We are family: Formerly conjoined twins Krishna (L) and Trishna (R)
re-unite with their biological mother Lovely Goldar and with the twin's
co-guardian Moira Kelly of the Children First Foundation, in Melbourne.
Pic/AFP
Miracle twins
Trishna and Krishna, born with their skulls and brains fused, were separated in a complex 32-hour operation last December after being rescued from a Dhaka orphanage by Australian aid workers convinced they faced death.
Their survival through the risky surgery was hailed as a miracle around the world.
The girls' mother, Lovely Mallick, had given them up shortly after birth in the hope they would receive medical care. Mallick (24), finally met her three-year-old daughters in Melbourne after flying there to see them earlier this month, Australian guardian Moira Kelly said, speaking for the first time about the family's reunion.
"The last time she saw her children was horrific for any human being, so it was very important to create a very
special memory for her now, because it was going to be something that was implanted in her heart and her mind," Kelly said.
"Trishy came up and warmed to us so beautifully and hugged the two of us, started wiping our tears, and of course mum then just put her arms around the little girl. It gives me goosebumps now, it was a really special moment."
Though the girls are to remain in Australia until they are older and in better health, Kelly said she wanted Mallick to remain part of their lives.
Tribute
Kelly paid tribute to the Bangladeshi woman's strength in refusing an abortion when she discovered the girls were conjoined and was initially told by doctors that it was a 'tumour.'
"She even had to stand up, as a young woman, to her own family," she said.
After their birth, Kelly said, Mallick would put the girls on a tray and take them to the roof of her house so they could lie in the sun to get crucial Vitamin D.
"It put shivers down my spine, to think she was so focused," Kelly said.
Arriving in Australia dangerously ill, the twins were nursed back to health by the staff at the Royal Children's Hospital who prepared them for the marathon separation surgery last December.
They were given only a 25 percent chance of surviving the separation surgery, but astounded doctors with their resilience, recovering so rapidly they were home within three weeks-- just in time for their birthday.
Peace and Patience
On June 7,u00a0 a hospital in Bangalore successfully completed a separation operation on nine-month-old Siamese twinsu00a0-- Peace and Patience. Both of themu00a0 were born joined at the abdomen and shared a common liver, small intestine, gall bladder and bilary gland. On June 15, they flew back to Benin city in Nigeria.
