Our Two Bundles Of Joy

These conjoined sisters can finally have separate cuddles after a successful operation

- Khatija Nxedlana

THE twin sisters are fast asleep, swaddled in identical fluffy pink blankets. They’re also identical – the only way to tell them apart is by their headbands: Uyihlelile is wearing a white one with a big pink flower while Uwenzile’s is pink and the bow has black and white polka-dots.

For the first few weeks of their lives the tiny girls in fact looked like mirror images as they lay on their sides, facing each other.

The sisters, joined at the tummy, were the latest set of conjoined twins in southern Africa. Now, successfully separated, the babies are well on their way to living normal lives, the scar on their bellies the only reminder that two were once one.

Mom Bongekile Shilongonyane is relieved and delighted by the prognosis. She’d already had one surprise in her pregnancy when she found out she was expecting twins again – her first set, sons Philasande and Hawasande, are two years old.

The second surprise was more of a shock: when she gave birth by Caesarean section at Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki, Swaziland, doctors discovered her babies were conjoined, their abdomens fused from belly button to breastbone.

“When they told me the news I was scared, I was crying,” says Bongekile (20), who lives in the rural Swazi town of Big Bend where ultrasound scans to detect problems aren’t common. “I thought I’d lose one of them.”

Plans were made straight away to get specialist care for the twins, who were born on 2 January.

With the help of health management company Healthshare – which manages specialised referrals of Swazi patients to South Africa – the then two-week old babies and their mom were transferred by ambulance to Netcare Unitas Hospital in Centurion, Gauteng.