They Shared a Crib, a Liver, and a Year. Then the Clock Hit 2:38 p.m.

The 20-week ultrasound in Chicago did not show two ordinary babies.

Maggie and Dom Altobelli were carrying thoraco-omphalopagus twins: joined at chest and abdomen, sharing liver, diaphragm, and the walls that would have to be rebuilt if anyone ever cut them apart. They moved toward Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. On November 18, 2020, Addison and Lilianna were born by planned caesarean in CHOP’s Special Delivery Unit. They spent months in intensive care — first the newborn unit, then the PICU — while surgeons mapped vessels and stretched skin with expanders so there would be enough cover when two bodies needed two closures.

On October 13, 2021, at ten months old, the shared crib rolled toward an operating room. Dr. Holly Hedrick led a team of more than two dozen: general and fetal surgeons, a cardiothoracic surgeon, plastic surgeons, two anesthesia crews, radiology with ultrasound on the liver. The case lasted about ten hours. At 2:38 p.m. the girls were separate. The team split in two and rebuilt each chest and belly with mesh and the skin that had been grown for that hour.

When Maggie and Dom saw them again, there were two cribs.

By December they flew home to Chicago — one twin with each parent. Years later CHOP cameras found them running, talking, and, in 2024, becoming big sisters. The hospital counts dozens of successful separations; this one had a timestamp and two names that fit on separate name cards.

Conjoined birth is rare. Shared liver and chest wall make it rarer still. What happened at 2:38 p.m. was not mystery. It was rehearsal, imaging, and a room that knew how to become two rooms.

Sources

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, “The Story of Addy and Lily: Birth and Separation of Conjoined Twins”
CHOP / PR Newswire, “CHOP Surgeons Separate Twin Girls Joined at the Chest and Abdomen,” January 21, 2022