This is another in a series of stories on local people who made news in 2011. It was a year wrought with emotion for Marengo resident Amanda Schulten, who chose life for her conjoined twins during her pregnancy despite the enormous odds against their survival.
Schulten saw the pregnancy through until her daughters Faith and Hope were born on Sept. 6 at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She held the twins in her arms as they passed away 23 days later.
Still healing from the loss, Schulten said she is grateful for everything she has in life. “In these past months, I’ve been trying to stay positive, and move forward. Some days are harder than others, when knowing God took my daughters so soon,” she said recently in her online blog documenting her journey. “I need to remind myself that I am thankful for everything God has given me.”
Despite the grave medical prognosis, Schulten, just 21 year-old at the time, said early on in the pregnancy that there was simply no other option than to bring the twins into the world — that they should be given a chance to live, no matter how long those lives may be.
Strong in her religious beliefs, Schulten said did not want to interfere with God’s will. “He has a plan for me, and for them,” she said when interviewed in August. “We never know when our last day will be. We have to enjoy it, and appreciate health while we have it.”
The girls had separate heads but were fully connected at the torso, sharing a heart, a liver, and both lungs and kidneys. They also shared two legs, one of which was clubbed. Each had one good arm, with another half arm on one side.
Although Schulten found online cases documenting similar twins living a few years, most do not survive very long after birth. The already bleak prognosis became more ominous three days after the girls were born, when a scan revealed a shunted heart — a condition of oxygen-poor blood flowing from one side to the other, and into the circulatory system.
Hope and Faith survived until Sept. 26, but never left the hospital. Schulten is continuing to update the online blog she created at amanda-faithhopelove.blogspot.com, which tells the story of her pregnancy and emotions afterward.
It’s been a long journey since April 1, when she first learned she was carrying twins during a routine ultrasound at Elgin’s Sherman Hospital. Schulten learned the distressing news that they were conjoined a few days later in her doctor’s office, where she was urged to have an abortion due to the grave prognosis.
Dark days would follow in the form of depression and loneliness, as many around her didn’t agree with her decision to continue the pregnancy. The difficulty was underscored after stories appeared in the Courier-News and Chicago Sun-Times about her decision, but she never wavered.
Several online bloggers wrote hurtful comments, she said, accusing her of everything from using taxpayer money to pay for the twins’ medical expenses to criticizing her for seeing the ill-fated pregnancy through and for her religious beliefs.
But she has asked that she not be judged, and wondered if some of her critics might change their minds if it were their children at stake.
“If they were in my shoes, maybe they’d see it differently,” Schulten said at the time. “If mothers don’t protect their children, who else will?”