Kendra and Maliyah Herrin are twin sisters who were born on February 26, 2002 sharing a large intestine, bladder, liver, and single kidney. When Erin was pregnant with them, one doctor encouraged her to get an abortion because he did not think the twins had organs that would enable them to survive outside the womb, but she continued with her pregnancy anyway.

After Kendra and Maliyah were born, doctors told their parents Erin and Jake that separating the two would be risky, but the parents knew that this operation was the only chance of giving them a normal life.

In 2006, when the twins were four years-old, they made headlines around the world when they became the first set of conjoined twins sharing a kidney to be successfully separated. The surgery took a whopping 26 hours, but it could not have gone any better!

Over the next few years, Kendra and Maliyah had to adjust to living with their own separate bodies. They each have one leg, but they could not be more grateful to their parents for insisting that they have the separation surgery.

These days, Kendra and Maliyah are normal 17 year-old girls living in Salt Lake City, Utah, and they love making YouTube videos together. Each of their videos shows their fans that the twins have their own unique personalities.

The video below is a special for the BBC called “The Twins That Were Cut in Half,” and it will show you what a normal day is like for the twins. After watching this video, you’ll see just how far the two of them have come!