When Nancy Hoffman-Delp and her husband Tim found out she was pregnant with twins conjoined at the head, their doctor recommended an abortion.
Despite slim 5% survival rate for such babies, the couple continued with the pregnancy and gave birth to the two boys, Stefan and Tyler. Because they share a circulatory system and their brains are not entirely separate, doctors determined that any attempts at surgical separation would likely be fatal.
Only a few years later came another large complication: the boys were diagnosed with a form of autism known as “splinter skills.” Because their heads are connected such that neither can face the same direction, they were quite delayed in learning to walk—one of them must take backward steps while the other walks forward. Theirs is a case that many pro-abortion advocates would agree would have been a prime candidate for abortion, on the grounds that both the parents and the boys would have a very difficult life.
Yet, the Delp family is happy.
Now 19 years old, Stefan and Tyler attend public school. They’ve learned to speak Spanish. On Tuesdays they take violin lessons. Of living attached to each other, the boys say that they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Mom and Dad feel the same. “We only get one ride around this sun, and I have to say that my most valuable contribution to myself is that I’m leaving this earth with absolutely no regrets at all,” Nancy said in a video interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Stefan and Tyler have been nothing short of a blessing to Timmy and I, and they are our magnum opus.”
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