YESTERDAY was a milestone Wodonga mum Rebecca Gardner hadn’t expected to mark in hospital — the first birthday of her miracle baby daughter Taylor.

Tiny Taylor has spent her entire life so far at the Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne, after she was born a year ago  yesterday weighing just 542g — 26 weeks into her mother’s pregnancy.

Her survival drew worldwide attention when soon after her birth, surgeons wired an external pacemaker the size of half a cherry to her tiny heart.

Taylor was the smallest baby ever fitted with such a device.

In October, she underwent a 1?-hour operation to replace the external pacemaker with a permanent internal device just 2cm by 2cm large and 2mm thick.

Taylor came through the surgery with her specialists confident of its success and it seemed Mrs Gardner was well on the way to bringing her daughter home to Wodonga for Christmas.

However, the fight was not over for Taylor.

Around Christmas, Taylor had yet another operation at the Royal Children’s Hospital to repair damage to a valve in her heart that had snapped.

A second operation was needed on March 25 after the heart valve snapped again.

Yesterday, nursing staff at Monash helped celebrate Taylor’s extraordinary first year with a cake and a party.

“I’m happy for her, although it’s not where we expected to be on Taylor’s first birthday,” Mrs Gardner said.

“It’s so far, so good since the last operation in March. We’re now waiting for the doctors to feel that she is ready to be transferred to hospital in Albury-Wodonga.”

Mrs Gardner will, in fact, return home with two new daughters.

While staying with her family at Ronald McDonald House in Melbourne, Mrs Gardner unexpectedly fell pregnant and gave birth to Ella three weeks ago.

Tiny Ella weighed 768g after Mrs Gardner’s doctors decided to deliver the little girl just 26 weeks and six days into the pregnancy because the placenta began to break down.

“She doesn’t have the complications Taylor had but like all premmies, she needs to grow,” Mrs Gardner said.

Mrs Gardner said her second daughter was a miracle like her elder sister, given that she had previously endured a heartbreaking eight miscarriages and one stillbirth before delivering Taylor.

“She will be my last baby, three is enough,” Mrs Gardner said.