‘I was stunned to see my great-grandchildren on TV’

Connie Formosa was watching her favourite daytime television show on Thursday morning when she saw her grandson, who lives in the UK, holding his twin daughters, Ruby and Rosie.

“I was stunned. I said: ‘That’s my Daniel,’” the bubbly 80-year-old said as she proudly pointed him out in several of the framed photos perched around the living room of her Paola home.

Her grandson Daniel Formosa was all over the global news after his daughters, who were born conjoined, were successfully separated.

“I’m so glad that all the trouble is over. Now he has two angels. All I tell him is to enjoy them. I love them a lot,” she said.

Ms Formosa, a widow, is now looking forward to seeing the babies and holding them in her arms. Since they were born, she has only seen them in photos and, lately, on TV.

“I really want to see them, they’re three months old and growing,” said the great-grandmother of seven.

Speaking to The Times on Thursday, her grandson also expressed the wish to come to Malta with his family to see her and other relatives.

“It’s great for us all to be together and we’re looking forward to coming to Malta so my grandmother – the twins’ great-grandmother – can finally see and hold them,” he said.

Daniel is the son of one of Ms Formosa’s five children, Victor, who left Malta almost 40 years ago to go to the UK, where he married and raised his family.

Daniel always lived in the UK but understood Maltese, she said. The 34-year-old taxi driver lives with his wife Angela, their older daughter Lily, five, and the twins in Bexleyheath, Kent.

Angela found out the twins were joined when she was between 16 and 20 weeks’ pregnant. They were delivered at University College Hospital at 34 weeks.

Within hours they were taken to Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, one of the world’s most experienced centres for treating conjoined twins.

Ruby and Rosie, who were joined at the abdomen and shared part of the intestine, were operated upon on July 27, the day after they were born, by a team of specialists led by paediatric surgeon Agostino Pierro.

Despite the distance, Ms Formosa speaks to her son regularly on Skype from her daughter’s house.

She was told the twins were conjoined at birth and her son kept her informed about the operation.

“I took the news badly. It’s not a nice thing but when all turned out well I thought: God has two angels now. They are so sweet…

“I think they look like their mother, who is fairer than Daniel’s side of the family,” she smiled.

Ms Formosa last saw Daniel and his family when they came to Malta on holiday more than a year ago.

She went to the UK for the couple’s wedding in 2010 but now will not fly so relies on them visiting.

“I really look forward to seeing them. There are no twins in our family but someone had to start the trend,” she said.

Connie Formosa has been kept informed about her great-granddaughters’ conditions. Photo: Jason Borg