Lynlee Hope is a miracle baby after being born ‘twice’.

The now four-month-old baby girl had a rough start to life when it was discovered she had a tumour growing on her spine in utero at 16 weeks.

Her mother, Margaret Hawkins Boemer, was originally expecting twins but had lost one of the babies before the second trimester. She was advised to terminate her pregnancy, until doctors at Texas Children’s Fetal Centre suggested a risky operation to save the baby’s life.

The tumour was the same size as Lynlee. The tumour known as a sacrococcygeal teratoma, diverts blood away from the foetus, causing fatal heart failure.

At 23 weeks, doctors performed the life-saving surgery by cutting into the womb and removing as much of the tumour as possible. There was a 50% survival rate.

But Mrs Boemer wanted to take the risk to save her baby girl.

Mrs Boemer told CNN news, “At 23 weeks, the tumour was shutting her heart down and causing her to go into cardiac failure, so it was a choice of allowing the tumour to take over her body or giving her a chance at life.

“It was an easy decision for us: We wanted to give her life.”

A huge incision was made to reach the tumour and as the leading Doctor Darrel Cass of Texas Children’s Fetal Centre explained it, the baby was “hanging out in the air”.

After the procedure, Mrs Boemer was put on 12 weeks bedrest. She gave birth to Lynlee a second time on the 6th June, via Caesarean. Lynlee was almost born at full term and weighed 5Ib and 5oz.

When Lynlee was 8 days old, she had another operation to remove the rest of the tumour from her tailbone.

The four-month-old is doing extremely well and she is at home and thriving.

The rare form of tumour occurs in one in every 30,000 to 70,000 births and it’s cause is unknown, but girls are four times more likely to experience it than boys.