Birthdays are always a good reason to celebrate, of course, but these three siblings definitely had a whole lot of reason to party.
Meet Mackenzie, Macey, and Madeline – a group of triplets, but not just any triplets.
Two of the girls were formerly conjoined twins, and they all recently celebrated their 18th birthday!
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Life expectancy for conjoined twins isn’t very good(most die within the first 48 hours), and there are usually a ton of complications and concerns regarding the health of two babies who are conjoined together.
Safe to say, it’s quite a miracle that these two girls were able just to survive, let alone to be separated.
But blessed they are, and now they’re leading a very happy life after all the difficult things they’ve been through.
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Their journey started when they were born in 2002, each of them weighing just two pounds.
Unfortunately, their mom was also a drug addict, and never even consulted a doctor for a check-up. When these babies were born, doctors discovered that two of them were conjoined.
Mackenzie and Macey were the Siamese twins of the three, completely conjoined at the pelvis. They were sharing a third leg together.
After birth, the triplets’ biological mother decided to give them up for adoption. She couldn’t take care of them, and she felt like this was the best option.
Luckily, it didn’t take long before a family expressed interested in adopting them and taking care of them as if they were their own.
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The adorable couple of Darla Keller and Jeff Garrison already had a pretty big family with three sons, and they always thought that the more souls in their house, the merrier it would be.
They have experience fostering children with special needs, and when they first met these triplets, they wanted to make them an official part of the family.
One year after the triplets were adopted, Macey and Mackenzie needed to go through with a separation surgery.
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It definitely wasn’t an easy task, because their intestines were intertwined as well.
Luckily, doctors were able to go through with the surgery without any complications.
Of course, life would never be easy for either of them. They have to rely on a prosthetic leg and also needed additional surgeries to correct spinal issues such as scoliosis.
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“It was a really huge surgery. They put rods… all the way down their thoracic spine, from their neck to the small of their back. There were 10 vertebrae they fused,” adoptive mom Darla said to People. “That recovery was difficult.”
All these medical procedures were definitely scary and stressful for the whole family, but now that everything went well and is in the past, they can finally celebrate.
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“They’re doing well now. They each got released to be back to normal and they’re not in pain anymore like they were,” Darla added.
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Next year, all of the girls will be graduating from high school and they’re already looking forward to their time in college.
“That’s going to be our focus in 2021: getting graduated and getting scholarships because they all want to go to college,” Darla told. “As parents, we have three other boys, so we haven’t been able to save a ton of money.”
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All three of them work very hard in school and are trying to get an academic scholarship.
Of course, Christmas time is ahead, and everyone is excited about the festive season.
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“We’ll be home [for Christmas], but we started a tradition last year: The girls wanted to do name draws. We didn’t buy presents for everybody, we just did a name draw within our family, and so they requested we do that again this year. They’re just very giving little girls, so they want to buy presents. And now they’re working so they all have money and they think spending money is fun. They’re very generous.”
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You can check out a video of the triplets’ story below.
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