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Hensel, 34, known for her joint fame with sister Brittany on the TLC reality series “Abby & Brittany,” exchanged vows with nurse and US Army veteran Josh Bowling, as revealed in public records accessed by Today and reported this week.
According to Today and other news outlets, the Hensels’ Facebook profile picture features what appears to be a wedding photo, showing the conjoined twins in a white wedding dress holding hands with a man in a grey suit.
Image courtesy of britt.abby on Facebook
The twins initially captured public attention in 1996 during an appearance on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” Subsequently, their lives were chronicled on TLC, documenting their journey through college and travels across Europe.
Following their stint on the 2012 TLC reality series “Abby & Brittany,” the Minnesota natives stepped away from the limelight to focus on their transition to adulthood.
In recent times, the pair has maintained privacy regarding certain aspects of their lives, including Abby Hensel’s marriage to Bowling in 2021, although they recently shared images together on TikTok.
Conjoined twins are an extraordinary rarity, occurring in 1 in 50,000 to 100,000 pregnancies, according to the National Institutes of Health. However, due to the high mortality rate, with 60% stillborn or dying shortly after birth, the actual occurrence drops to approximately 1 in 200,000 live births, as per NIH data.
Abby and Brittany are dicephalus conjoined twins, an uncommon condition where two heads are situated side by side on one torso. They possess separate hearts and stomachs, a single pair of arms and legs, with their spines conjoining at the pelvis. Sharing a bloodstream and organs from the waist down, they exhibit a remarkable level of coordination despite having two distinct brains.
Abby controls their right arm and leg, while Brittany manages the left. Both their parents and medical professionals quickly ruled out the possibility of separating the twins. In a 2001 interview with Time magazine, their father, Mike, grappled with the unimaginable decision, stating, “How could you pick between the two?”
Dr. Joy Westerdahl, the family’s attending physician during their birth, noted in 2001 the impossibility of predicting their long-term prognosis. However, she marvelled at their synchronised complex movements, such as clapping hands, learning to walk, swimming, and riding a bike, facilitated by their distinct yet coordinated brains.
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