The parents of ten-month-old conjoined twins who were born sharing a skull and part of a brain are opening up about how their family is adjusting after the girls were successfully separated during an extraordinary ‘one-in-a-million’ operation last month.

Abigail and Micaela Bachinskiy, from Sacramento, California, were born on December 30, as craniopagus twins, meaning they were joined at the head and shared a skull, brain tissue and soft tissues. However, doctors successfully separated the sisters during a 24-hour operation at UC Davis Children’s Hospital on October 23 and 24.

Now, the girls’ parents, Liliya Mirochnik and Anatoliy Bachinskiy, have told People that they are still getting used to seeing their daughters with two separate bodies, describing the experience as an emotional and unforgettable journey.

The babies made headlines after their birth because of their extraordinarily rare condition. Conjoined twins occur in approximately one in every 200,000 births, while twins joined at the head are even rarer, with only around 10 to 20 cases per million births in the US.

Doctors began preparing for the possibility of separating the twins, and ten months after their arrival, they carried out the successful operation, giving the family two separate little girls.

‘The doctors were always saying one in a million,’ Liliya said. ‘But I had a feeling because I saw God’s hand through the pregnancy, so many miracles, like big miracles, you know? And I just knew that God was taking care of this.’

‘It took me a minute to hold them because they were so unique,’ Anatoliy added. ‘You got used to them being together, and now you’re seeing two different girls, two different bodies and … it’s just amazing.’

‘It was very special,’ Liliya said. ‘I was crying when I held them, tears were filling my eyes. When you hold them, if you have some worries internally, they just go away. I wasn’t heavy inside, I felt so relieved.’

‘From day number one, you could tell their personalities and who the boss was,’ she added. ‘Abi, she’s bigger and she’s more bossy. But Mika, she is more gentle… I think they will get along very well because they’re different and will complete each other.

‘They love each other and you can tell, even while being separated now. During the first couple of days, Mika would reach her hand to find Abi and Abi was looking for Mika. That was so cute.’

The couple, who also have three sons, were shocked when they first learned their twins were conjoined, initially believing there must have been a misunderstanding.

‘But later on, God just gave me peace inside, and I just stuck with that. And my husband was supporting and encouraging me,’ Liliya said.

Abigail and Micaela were already defying the odds from the beginning. Among twins joined at the head, approximately 40 per cent are stillborn and around 33 per cent do not survive after birth, often because of serious medical complications.

However, around 25 per cent have been known to survive and may have the possibility of separation, depending on how their skulls and shared structures are connected.

Dr. Granger Wong, UC Davis Children’s chief of plastic surgery, highlighted just how unusual the girls’ circumstances were in an interview with DailyMail.com.

‘Conjoined twins in and of themselves are rare and to have them joined at the head is even more rare, and to even have the favorable anatomy to be divided because sometimes shared too many structures is even rarer,’ he said.

Many conjoined twins do not even make it to delivery, let alone undergo an operation, Wong added.

But Abigail and Micaela made remarkable progress, spending seven weeks in the NICU before finally going home.

‘We have felt so much support from staff,’ Liliya said. ‘We have received so much help, so much advice. It has made us feel at home here.’

For ten months, doctors carried out practice simulations using 3D models to prepare for the many possible challenges during surgery, including breathing difficulties and lung complications.

They also used augmented reality to study the blood vessels that needed to be carefully separated, practising the complex process before the operation.

In June, a plastic surgery team placed specially designed tissue expanders beneath the girls’ scalps to gradually stretch the skin, ensuring each child would have enough tissue to cover her skull after separation.

‘There was planning for every step of the way that we could think of,’ UC Davis pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Edwards told DailyMail.com.

‘Everything’s gotta happen on time, the right way, everybody ready and no question about what we’re asking them to do.’

When the girls reached nine months old, doctors decided the time had come to proceed with the separation.

‘There have only been mid-20s in terms of conjoined separations in world history. They haven’t been done younger than six months of age,’ Wong said.

‘Doing it too much later, there are certain developmental milestones you want them to have and the biggest one is mobility, and eventually crawling, standing and walking and obviously, if they’re conjoined, they’ll be delayed.

‘We want them old enough to handle such an operation but young enough not to miss developmental milestones.’

The operation began on October 23 and continued into the early hours of October 24. More than 30 medical professionals took part, including neurosurgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, pediatric surgeons and plastic surgeons.

The medical staff were divided into two colour-coded teams, with Team Purple responsible for Micaela and Team Orange caring for Abigail.

‘One team manages one baby and one team manages the other and there’s no crossover for assistance,’ Dr. Rajvinder Dhamrait, director of pediatric anesthesiology at UC Davis Children’s, told DailyMail.com.

‘So if one baby deteriorates, the other team does not help. Then there’s a coordinator, or an overseer, who manages both. That was me; I did both,’ he added.

‘The operation has to be done as accurately and expediently as possible because the longer it is, the greater the risk of blood loss, of exposure to anesthetics,’ Wong explained.

‘It was like a choreographed ballet because we had to choreograph all the movements so it could be done as quickly as possible.’

At 3:28am on October 24, Edwards announced, ‘Cranial separation!’ as the girls were officially separated, prompting cheers from the entire medical team.

‘Everything went well. It felt almost impossible to separate them, but God and the doctors and nurses at UC Davis made it possible. We are so thankful,’ Liliya said.

Edwards, the neurosurgeon, says he cannot wait to see the sisters interact when they meet each other again.

‘I like to go up there every morning because the world around us is full of bad things and terror, and you go up there and see these two little girls, and it’s a good start to the day,’ he said.