The 4-year-old North Salt Lake girls are joined at the pelvis and share a liver and kidney.
Their parents, Jacob and Erin Herrin, gave the girls tearful hugs and kisses as they handed them off to anesthesiologists, said Marley Orton, Jacob Herrin's sister.
"While it was emotional, they still felt at peace with the decision they made," Orton said.
The family's anxiety was tempered by the girls' exuberance over being separated. At a family gathering Sunday, the twins shared their excitement with everyone to came to see them.
"They'd smile and say, 'We get to be cut apart tomorrow. We get to be separated,' " Orton said. "Knowing that they are aware of what is happening, and that they're excited about it, gives us a little more comfort."
The girls enjoyed a sort of scavenger hunt as they rolled down the corridor toward to the operating room this morning. They stopped at numbered flaps posted along the walls. Under each flap was a sentence detailing the girls' favorite things, including baby tacos and hot dogs.
Led by Pediatric Surgery Division Chief Rebecka Meyers, eight surgeons and dozens of operating staff, anesthesiologists, radiologists, and pharmacists are involved in the operation.
While most conjoined twins are separated in infancy, the Herrin girls' single kidney complicated matters. The twins' separation needed to wait until Maliyah was big enough to handle dialysis and improve her odds for a successful kidney transplant.
She will be on dialysis for an estimated three to six months, until she receives one of her mother's kidneys.
Conjoined twins occur in one of every 50,000 to 100,000 births. Most conjoined twins are joined at the chest, while only about six percent are joined at the hip like Kendra and Maliyah.
The Herrin family's Web site, www.herrintwins.com, had more than a million hits through Sunday, but the traffic has caused it to crash. The family also asks that in lieu of flowers, well-wishers make donations to Primary Children's Medical Center or the Make-a-Wish Foundation, which granted Kendra and Maliyah their wishes: Maliyah got a castle playroom, and Kendra got to meet all the princesses at Disney World.
