File photo Shira Gal Shira Gal

LYNLEE HOPE BOEMER is a unique child – she holds the distinction of having been born twice.

Her mother, Texas native Margaret, went for a routine ultrasound scan at 16 weeks only to hear the last news anyone wants to hear – her baby was very sick.

Lynlee Hope had a tumour known as a sacrococcygeal teratoma, that affects one in every 35,000 infants.

Boemer had already been through one tragedy in the course of her pregnancy – Lynlee had initially been a twin but the other baby had been lost.

“They saw something on the scan, and the doctor came in and told us that there was something seriously wrong with our baby,” Margaret told CNN.

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And it was very shocking and scary, because we didn’t know what that long word meant or what diagnosis that would bring

At 16 weeks of pregnancy, the only option to treat Lynlee’s tumour was emergency foetal surgery. When performed, the tumour was nearly as large as Lynlee herself.

The surgery itself was performed at 23 weeks and five days. It lasted five hours.

Lynlee was almost entirely removed from the womb so the surgery could be performed.

“”The part on the foetus we do very, very quickly,” surgeon Darrell Cass told CNN.

It’s only 20 minutes or so on the actual foetus.

The rest of the operation is spent opening and shutting the uterus Cass explained.

The baby is “hanging out in the air… essentially, the foetus is outside, like completely out, all the amniotic fluid falls out, it’s actually fairly dramatic,” he said.

Following the successful surgery, Lynlee was placed back in the womb and Margaret, already a mother-of-two, was confined to bed for the remainder of the pregnancy.

That came to an end on 6 June when Lynlee Hope, aged almost 36 weeks, was born for a second time, at a healthy five pounds, five ounces. The remains of the tumour that could not be removed first time round were taken away in a further operation eight days later.

And she continues to thrive.

“Baby Boemer is still an infant but is doing beautiful,” Cass said.

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