The World Economic Forum

Herrin Twins bring their family story to the world

Before their birth, conjoined twins Kendra and Maliyah Herrin were given less than a 25% chance of living. Today, these seven-year-olds have beaten the odds not once, but twice when the conjoined twins were separated. Three years after the marathon separation surgery, and two years after Maliyah’s landmark kidney transplant, where she received one of her mother’s kidneys, the girls are celebrating life with family, a TLC television special, and a book titled When Hearts Conjoin, which chronicles their life story.

“By telling our story, we wanted to give people hope and a greater understanding that they can get through difficult times in their lives, says Erin Herrin, the twins’ mother. “Miracles still exist every day. We have seen that ever since we discovered I was carrying conjoined twins.”

That October afternoon in 2001 was not easy for the couple. Already a mother of a toddler, Erin had recently been split from her husband Jake, leaving her concerned about how she was going to care for the one child she already had, let alone adding another. “I was excited to find out if Courtney would have a brother or a sister, but the expense of raising children on my own still kept me worried,” she says. “We had just moved into a new house, and that also meant lots of bills that had to be paid. We’d just experienced 9-11 and, like today, the economy was suffering.”

“When the sonographer first told me I was carrying conjoined twins, something inside me froze. I’d heard the word conjoined before, but I didn’t register exactly what he meant. Not what it meant for me, or for my babies,” Erin adds. “I was advised to terminate the pregnancy, but there was no way I could. To me, they were already mine, and even though I knew we’d need a miracle, I wanted these children.”

On February 26th, 2002, that miracle occurred for the Herrin family. Kendra and Maliyah were born at 7:18 p.m. via C-section at the University of Utah Hospital, then shortly whisked off to the Intensive Care unit at Primary Children’s Hospital. “They were only six pounds four ounces together and too small to survive on their own,” Erin says. “I just needed to keep enough faith that the miracles would continue to come.”

“Miracles bring new hope at the time when people are struggling,” Erin continues. “We were struggling emotionally as a couple, just like the nation is struggling now with the economy. We’ve had to learn to find the miracles in life every day, not just hoping for the big things. Although the big miracles came to us as well.”

At first those miracles included the twins surviving their first night, surviving the first of their many future surgeries, having their organs function independently of machines, allowing them to sustain life.

Two months after their birth, the girls we declared strong enough to go home. “I can’t say that it was easy,” Erin says. “There was so much to do, and just caring for the girls was a full time job for two. Jake and I were back together, reunited because of our common struggle and the awareness it gave us of how much we really did love each other.”

“We also had Courtney to think about,” she adds. “I don’t know what we would have done without our extended family, Grandma Patsy especially.”

It took awhile, but at last things settled down and the family got into a routine of caring for all three of the girls, but there was still the question of separation. The doctors felt there would be future complications that were dire enough to warrant the necessity of the separation surgery, despite the fact that none had previously been done for twins conjoined in the manner that Kendra and Maliyah were.

“This was the most difficult decision of my life,” Erin explains. “We had already waited for two years, weighing all the options, getting all the facts. Just when we thought we had our answer, that we were ready to go through with it, I discovered that once again I was pregnant—with another set of twins. I knew I couldn’t handle the stress of the separation, and that my pregnancy would delay the possibility of my giving Maliyah a kidney which she would desperately need not long after the separation occurred.”

But there were more things to consider about the separation itself. “I knew that separation was the right thing,” Erin says. “Kendra and Maliyah were two very distinct and individual personalities. We wanted the girls to be able to live the most normal lives as possible, to make their own choices and be able to live them through. We wanted to give them the chance to live and grow as individuals. But we also never wanted them to forget about the time they were conjoined.  They had such a complete bond, and Jake and I weren’t sure how they would cope if something happened to either one of them.”

The doctors concerns had increased that Kendra and Maliyah would not be able to survive much longer with the single kidney the two of them shared. A separation would be necessary before a transplant could occur.

On June 10th, 2005, fraternal twins Justin and Austin were born after complications of their own that threatened Erin’s life. But having survived all the struggles she had already faced, Erin knew she wasn’t ready to give up now.

“Because the boys were premature, they spent the first three weeks in ICU. Our house was already crazy,” she says, “but once they came home, it would become insane. Jake and I now had five children, all under the age of five. And two of them needed separation surgery. We’d made it this far, I knew we could do the rest, but we just kept praying for the miracles to come.”

August 7, 2006, in a surgery that lasted twenty-six hours, Kendra and Maliyah were successfully separated. “Their older sister, Courtney, was a great example with helping the girls adjust to being separated,” Erin says, pride evident in her voice. But the drama wasn’t yet over. Maliyah still needed a kidney transplant. She spent hours each day in dialysis and Erin knew this wasn’t the life she wanted her child to lead.

“One of Maliyah’s friends had already died because she didn’t get a kidney in time,” Erin says. “We had gotten to know so many people at Primary Children’s who had lost their children. It brought us great concern about our girls. Wondering what would happen if they didn’t make it. How it would affect us? No parent should have to deal with the loss of a child, yet we knew we had to take that chance.”

When it came time for the transplant surgery, it was Erin who found herself worried. “Maliyah had become an old pro and having surgeries,” Erin says. “And it wasn’t the procedure itself that concerned me, I was nervous because they were taking me into surgery before they were taking her. I didn’t want to leave my little girl alone, even for a minute. As it turned out, I spent all that worry for nothing. She went in first after all, and she didn’t even cry.”

Although both girls still face additional surgeries in the future to straighten their spines, and despite a few episodes that have sent them to the hospital such as Maliyah’s recent RSV that nearly sent her into kidney rejection, Kendra and Maliyah are doing well.

They are enrolled in school, and Courtney has been teaching them how to dance. “We hope to have both girls fitted with prosthetic legs soon, but in the meantime, they have learned to use crutches to get around, although Maliyah prefers to scoot on the floor,” Erin says.

The entire family has just returned from a trip to California where TLC filmed a special about the girls. “We’re really looking forward to seeing how this all turns out,” Erin says. “We had a great time at the filming and I was able to narrate some of the footage using sections from the book.” TLC continues to run the special, “Sisters Bond” as one of their most watched shows.

The book, When Hearts Conjoin, written by Erin Marie Herrin with Lu Ann Brobst Staheli, is a story of faith, hope, and the power of a mother’s love, and features never before seen photos of the girls and their family, as well as a foreword by #1 New York Times best-selling author Richard Paul Evans. Royalties from book sales go into a trust fund for the girls and is available for purchase at Amazon.com and LuAnnBrobstStaheli.com.

About the Author

Lu Ann Brobst Staheli is a freelance author living in Utah. Named Utah’s 2010 Best of State Literary Arts Non-Fiction, her previous works include When Hearts Conjoin, a biography of formerly conjoined twins Kendra and Maliyah Herrin, and Psychic Madman, a biography of mentalist and entertainer Jim Karol.

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