'Sugar bag' babies are 21 on Xmas Day (From The Argus)

'Sugar bag' babies are 21 on Xmas Day

10:04am Monday 24th December 2007

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Meet miracle twins Charlotte and Louise Seaward - the "sugar bag babies" born on Christmas day, 21 years ago.

Charlotte and Louise were born three months early and weighed just over 2lb each when they were delivered on December 25, 1986.

The identical sisters, who doctors feared would not pull through, were so small they wore dolls clothes for the first six months of their lives.

Mother Claire Seaward, 47, from Small Dole, co-owner of Brooklands Glass Centre in Lancing, with her husband Darren, also 47, said: "I was 26 at the time and was desperately trying to get everything ready for Christmas as normal.

"I was six months pregnant - my due date was around March 14 - but all I could think about was that we had 14 people coming for Christmas dinner.

"I was cooking food and decorating the house and then at about 5pm the day before Christmas eve I started to get stomach pains.

"I carried on doing what I was doing for about half an hour and then they got so bad Darren called an ambulance to get me to hospital and followed in the car.

"I thought I was having a miscarriage.

The twins weren't due for another 12 weeks.

"I couldn't believe it when the doctors said they thought I was going to give birth.

"They tried hard to delay it for as long as possible until a bed and all the equipment was prepared.

"I spent Christmas eve making sure the dinner had been rearranged at someone else's house, then at 12 and 13 minutes past midnight on Christmas day, they were born.

"Charlotte was first and Louise was second."

"Because we weren't expecting them we didn't have names for them so we just called them Twin One and Twin Two."

Christmas at the Seawards was cancelled but members of the festive dining party visited the new mum in hospital with presents, flowers and a token Christmas dinner.

"No one gave baby clothes or anything because no one was sure they would make it and didn't want to tempt fate,"

said Claire.

After more than a month in a specialist baby ward, unable to be held by their parents, the twins' condition stabilised and they left hospital on February 16.

"It was such a relief. We'd had to stand outside the incubator and watch them.

There were so many pipes and tubes and it felt really strange not to be able to pick them up and give them a cuddle. By the time we got them home Christmas had been and gone."

They were the first twins to be born at The Royal Sussex County Hospital on Christmas Day for six years.

The twins went to North Lancing Primary School and Steyning Grammar before getting a job at the same hairdressers, Anthony Michael in Goring. They have identical long blonde hair and work the same shifts, with the same day off every week.

Claire said: "They beg to differ but they're very similar in lots of ways.

"They will go out shopping separately and come back with the same things and they still say the same thing at the same time."

Louise said: "People who come in to have their hair cut think we're the same person so half way through the cut they will tell the other one what they want doing next.

"Sometimes people in cars practically grind to a halt because they're staring at us.

We get really cross because we don't realise how strange it seems to people. In our minds, we look really different."

This year the twins plan to celebrate Christmas day together but go out with separate friends for a meal the week afterwards.

Charlotte said: "It's hard to organise a birthday at Christmas because all our friends are with their families.

"We have completely different sets of friends.

"It's nice to share things but we want people to see us as individuals.

"I don't even tell some of my friends I have a twin and don't know if they would figure it out if they saw Louise in the street."

When they were younger Claire and Darren organised the twins birthday the day before Christmas. Claire said: "We wanted them to know both events were special and their birthday wouldn't get lost among the Christmas celebrations.

"But now they're older and presents are things like car insurance or money for holidays, we just combine the two.

"We always try to get them quite different things and we never call them the twins' any more. I think it's really important that they know we see them as two very different and independent people."

The twins plan to have their own - very separate - hairdressing businesses.

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