Born at 490g when her mother was just 23 weeks and two days pregnant, Naledi Theu finally went home with her parents after five months at Life St George’s Hospital on Tuesday.Her identical twin, Nzinga, did not survive.“It was all her,” Dr Greg Boden said as he held his little miracle patient before she went home for the first time.She is one of the smallest babies to be saved at the hospital and Boden paid tribute to her parents and the neonatal ICU team of nurses.Now at a “Home Affairs age” of five months, she weighs only 2.25kg.“She is the toughest little girl in the world,” her doting dad, Monde Theu, 40, said.“This was hell. But she was so strong and so brave.“It was bloody hard. There is nothing that can prepare you,” he said.“We are like soldiers with PTSD. You need continuous psychological help.“It destroys you. It rips through you. “What saved us was Naledi. “It was all worth it. She is stronger than us.”The baby’s mother, Busisiwe Madikizela-Theu, 37, had a miscarriage in 2017 and was delighted when she found out she was pregnant in June 2018.At her third appointment, her obstetrician, Dr Pieter Marais, said she was expecting identical twins.“That shocked me. It made me extremely nervous.“It was scary,” Theu said. “He is an awesome gynaecologist and a good man.“He told us it was not going to be easy,” he said.Early on the morning of November 7, MadikizelaTheu’s water broke.They went to the hospital. “The twins were still OK. “Their hearts were beating strong,” she said.Doctors, however, were caught in a legal conundrum as they could not perform a caesarean section before 24 weeks.“We had to wait for them to come.“At 9.38am, Naledi was born.”The couple’s midwife, Michelle van der Westhuizen, had explained to them that natural birth would not be best for twins because the placenta collapses.“That is what happened to me,” Madikizela-Theu said.“The birthing canal was closed.“Nzinga had to be taken out surgically, but she didn’t make it.”Theu said: “I’ll never forget her birth.“Naledi came out and she made a little whooping noise.“I was waiting for her to come out and cry.“A nurse took her and just ran.“I didn’t want to go and see Nzinga.“But the more I thought, the more I realised I did want to see her.“I cried and cried. Crying is not really something that I do. “My body never really cries. “It was heartbreaking for me. We were dazed and confused.”Back at the neonatal intensive care unit, Naledi was wrapped in plastic to protect her tiny 490g body.As she watched her little girl fighting for her life, MadikizelaTheu sang to her.“It was so difficult. Beforehand I was practising to hold twins and then I couldn’t even hold one baby,” she said.“I couldn’t touch her. We had to wear gloves and masks.“But I sang to her. All the time, from the first day I saw her,” she said.The couple was told to just think of the next 24 hours, then 48, then 72, and finally a week and then two weeks.“When we reached a month, Dr Boden said: ‘We have reached a month!’“We brought a cake for all the nurses and doctors,” Madikizela-Theu said.She said she liked writing in her journal but was hesitant to do so during her pregnancy.“After Naledi came I thought I have to live for today because I don’t know what is going to happen,” she said.The little girl survived several infections but finally reached 1kg in weight, and then 2kg.The couple was full of praise for the care they received.Theu said: “If I could summarise the past few months in a word, it would be ‘kindness’.“Ubuntu isn’t dead.”..