TWINS Maddison and Macie Oates had a nervous start to life after being born almost 11 weeks premature.
Now, as the seven-year-olds skipped off to their first day at junior school full of beans, you would never guess at just how fraught the first few weeks of their lives actually were.
Seeing their happy and healthy girls start their junior year is another a special milestone for parents Becci and Adrian Oates, of Carron Drive, Mapplewell, as it's a day they thought may never come.
Becci, who works as an NHS administration clerk, had a troubled pregnancy from the start, suffering from infections, bleeding and high blood pressure problems.
Attempts to stop her going into labour failed, which may have saved Macie's life. Becci believes that if Macie hadn't been born when she was, she wouldn't have survived.
Maddison arrived first, weighing 3lbs, and Macie, whose placenta had stopped working affecting her development in the womb, was even lighter at just under two pounds.
The sisters, who shared an incubator at the special care baby unit at Barnsley Hospital, were so tiny and fragile that mum Becci, 33, was too frightened to hold them and only dared to poke her hand into the incubator to give them a gentle stroke.
They had dummies no bigger than a 50 pence piece and stomachs smaller than a little finger nail.
But the girls, who turn eight on September 23, were tougher than they looked and nurses taught Becci kangaroo care, which is about skin to skin contact, and she soon became confident enough to wash, change and help feed the twins.
They have grown up fit and healthy and Becci says the last eight years have gone by 'so fast'.
"I remember when I held them for the first time, it was like holding fresh air. Their clothes weighed more than them."
The family has never looked back and the last eight years have been filled with happy memories of birthdays, holidays, fishing trips - and a little sister called Georgia.
"We decided to tell the girls about their birth recently and they find it fascinating looking through pictures of when they were babies, but Macie does get upset by it sometimes.
"I've still got a box with their babysuits in and dummies in, some of the wires and tubes and wristbands, which are so small they fit on your thumb.
"I was definitely given a gift with these girls, there's no doubt about that. It's been a rollercoaster ride."
