Bangladeshi mom want twins to stay in Australia

While she and her factory worker husband, Kartik Mollick, 35, wanted to maintain a relationship with their daughters, both parents hoped that the twins would be raised in Australia.

"I am from a poor family and am not able to take care of them," the mother said. "I want them to get a proper education and live a good life."

"I want them to maintain a relationship with me, no matter where they live, when they are grown up," she added. "They have come from my soul."

Smith said it was too early to say whether the girls' legal guardian, Children First Foundation founder Moira Kelly, would adopt them.

"I think she'd like to do that, but that's something we can't make a decision on at the moment," Smith said on Friday.

Trishna has been talking and behaving normally since she regained consciousness on Thursday.

Kelly said Saturday that that she was able to relax for the first time since the surgery when Krishna awoke Friday and made a characteristic gesture.

Both sisters were neurologically sound, Kelly said.

Krishna is expected to have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain's blood circulation. Both girls were in serious but stable condition.

Wirginia Maixner, the Royal Children's Hospital director of neurosurgery, said there may be minor changes to the girls from where their brains were separated but that overall the brains looked good. MRI scans Wednesday showed no signs of brain injury.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

An aid worker first saw Trishna and Krishna in an orphanage when they were a month old, and contacted the Children First Foundation.

The foundation raised almost 250,000 Australian dollars ($229,000) for the cost of caring for the twins in between numerous earlier surgeries to separate blood vessels connecting their brains. A mystery benefactor funded all hospital costs, Smith said.

(Edit:Ruby)