Baby girl "born twice" after life-saving surgery to remove rare tumor

Lynlee, a Texas baby girl, looks as healthy as other babies, but her birth in June was the second time she made an entrance into the world after surviving a life-saving surgery.

Lynlee's mom, Margaret Boemer, went for a routine ultrasound 16 weeks into her pregnancy and shockingly found that her child had something wrong.

"They saw something on the scan, and the doctor came in and told us that there was something seriously wrong with our baby and that she had a sacrococcygeal teratoma," Boemer said in an interview shared by Texas Children's Hospital.

"And it was very shocking and scary, because we didn't know what that long word meant or what diagnosis that would bring," she said.

Sacrococcygeal teratoma is a tumor that develops before birth and grows from a baby's tailbone, according to Texas Children's Hospital.

Found more often in girls than boys, it is a type of tumor commonly seen in newborns, but its occurrence is very rare, with only one in 35,000 births, the hospital said.

Some of these tumors can be tolerated during pregnancy and be removed after birth, Dr. Darrell Cass, co-director of Texas Children's Fetal Center and associate professor of surgery, pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology at Baylor College Medicine, told the CNN. But Lynlee was not that lucky as her heart showed signs of failing, he added.

Cass told Boemer that fetal surgery is another possibility, but this option is risky both for the baby and the mom.

Boemer decided to take the surgery as it would still mean a glimmer of hope for her baby's survival. "We wanted to give her life," she said.

Cass performed the emergency fetal surgery in March when Boemer was about 24 weeks pregnant.

Cass and another pediatric surgeon made an incision in Boemer's uterus, pulled out the baby and removed the giant tumor from her small body. Then they placed the baby back inside her mom's womb.

Boemer remained in bed for three months till her full term of pregnancy and gave birth to Lynlee the second time on June 6 via C-section.

Lynlee, now 4 months old, is perfectly healthy as other babies, Cass said.

"It was very difficult," Boemer said, but "it was worth every pain." Endi