Conjoined twins separation surgery progress

• 10:50 p.m.: Kendra and Maliyah are no longer conjoined. Doctors finished separating them earlier than expected, and at 11 p.m. moved the girls into separate operating rooms to complete the surgeries, which will still take several hours.

• 10 p.m.: Doctors have begun to separate the liver, which will bring them very close to being able to separate the twins completely. At that point, it will become two operations. So far, Kendra has needed a small amount of blood. Doctors are still holding to a target time of 4 a.m. to complete the surgery, but it could run shorter or longer, depending on how smoothly the remaining stages go.

• 7 p.m.: The girls' condition remains very stable, but doctors say the bladders are more complex than anticipated. The doctors have now finished examining and deciding how to divide up bladder tissue. There are two bladders, but each girl contributes one-half the blood supply, nerves and urine to each one. They have decided now how to assign the tissue, but will not form the bladders until after the girls are separated. Then a separate team will work on each girl.

• 4:30 p.m.: Urologists are now working on the girls' urinary tracts and bladders.

• 1:30 p.m.: So far, no surprises, according to Dr. Rebecka Meyers, coordinating surgeon and chief of pediatric surgery at Primary Children's Medical Center and University Hospital. The girls are stable and seven hours into the surgery, they have not had to give the girls any blood.

Surgeons have successfully divided the large intestine. Now they're working on other organs in the pelvis. Typically, conjoined twins who are joined at the abdomen or pelvis share some organs, lack some and may have extra of others. But the Herrins have asked that very personal details about Kendra and Maliyah's anatomy be kept private.

The surgery team is right on schedule and predicts the girls will be separated around midnight, at which time it will become two operations in adjacent rooms. They think they'll finish about 4 a.m.

• 10:45 a.m.: Doctors have been preparing the girls for more than three hours. They spent most of that time making sure Kendra and Maliyah were stabilized under anesthesia and positioning them so that surgeons will have access as needed to both girls' small bodies. A few minutes ago, the doctors made the first incision.