Formerly conjoined twins Fiorella and Yurelia Rocha-Arias are ready to go home in Costa Rica after doctors gave them 50-50 chance of survival in November when they performed the surgery of separation at Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

“The girls are doing well. They have healed,” Dr. Gary Hartman, who led the surgery told reporters at the twins’ first public appearance since the surgery, the Associated Press reported.

He added that the girls are healthy enough to leave the hospital and they had low risk of facing complications.

Yurelia and Fiorella were connected at the right atria of their hearts, the chamber that receives blood from the rest of the body and they shared a liver and some blood. It took Dr. Hartman and his team nine hours of surgery and several follow up procedures for them to be considered healthy, individual two-year-old girls.

“I feel very happy and very content, because my girls were born anew in this hospital,” Maria Elizabeth Arias told reporters, speaking through a Spanish interpreter, visibly emotional, the AP wrote.

Although they are separated, their mother said they are still connected emotionally. They sleep together and look for each other even when they are awake.

Dr. Hartman said his experience with four previous separation surgeries on conjoined twins helped make this one successful.

“This operation went smoothly because of the previous operations. We knew what to expect,” he said.

He also added that Fiorella would need a further surgery to have her chest reconstructed.

However, their mother and their other nine brothers and sisters are all waiting for the girls home in Costa Rica. Their mothers said she was very excited at the thought of walking with her two daughters keeping them by the hands, each girl on her own, as their face-to-face position before the surgery made it nearly impossible.

Both girls will attend physical therapy once a week for several weeks when they return home. They shall have normal lives from now on, according to Hartman.

The incidence of conjoined twins is ranging from 1 in 30,000 to 1 in 200,000 worldwide, researchers estimate and about five separation surgeries are performed annually in the United States.