Mayra Beltran / Houston Chronicle via AP

Audrina Cardenas smiles as a steady stream of doctors inspect her plastic heart protective shield a day before she was discharged from Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. Audrina Cardenas, was born with much of her heart outside her body, a highly unusual condition that's usually fatal within the first few days after birth.

By Lisa Flam

A Texas woman received tragic news 16 weeks into her pregnancy: An ultrasound showed that her fetus was developing with a rare heart malformation that almost always proves fatal.

On Audrina’s second day of life, a team of 11 doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston spent six hours performing a life-saving, open-heart surgery to make room in her chest for the one-third of her heart that was outside of her body. Read the full story.

Editor's note: Photo taken on Jan. 22, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Audrina Cardenas and her mother appeared on NBC's TODAY on Tuesday. Watch the video below:

Beawiharta / Reuters

Lenny Rukiya Tampubolon stands in front of her office as she gives a bottle of her breast milk to Rudy, a breast milk motorbike courier, before he delivers the milk to her son at her home in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 18, 2012.

Reuters reports from JAKARTA on the breast milk motorbike couriers helping new moms to balance their home and work lives:

The service was launched in 2010 by Fikri Nauval, owner of a cargo and document shipping business, who said he was inspired by his wife's using one of his motorcycle riders to send her breast milk home to their baby after she had to return to work. 

He charges 30,000 to 40,000 rupiah ($3.30 to $4.40) a trip, keeping track of traffic conditions and the best routes for drivers to take using a GPS map on a computer. Read the full story.

Beawiharta / Reuters

A courier holds a bottle of breast milk as he arrives at Lenny Rukiya Tampubolon's house in Jakarta, where he is greeted by Lenny's babysitter and son.

Beawiharta / Reuters

Lenny's babysitter feeds her son Abraham Pratama Prasetyo after the delivery.

Get more parenting news and views at TODAYMoms.

courtesy Haydee Ibarra via AP

This undated photo provided by Melinda Guido's family shows Melinda, with her mother's fingers in the scene, in the neonatal intensive care unit at the Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. Melinda was born premature at 24 weeks weighing 9.5 ounces. She's believed to be the second smallest surviving baby in the United States and third smallest in the world.

The Associated Press reports from LOS ANGELES:

 At birth, Melinda Star Guido was so tiny she could fit into the palm of her doctor's hand. Weighing just 9 1/2 ounces, she is among the smallest babies ever born in the world. Most infants her size don't survive, but doctors are preparing to send her home by New Year's.

Jae C. Hong / AP

Now 14 weeks old, Melinda Star Guido holds her mother's little finger while lying in an incubator at the same hospital on Dec. 14, 2011.

Jae C. Hong / AP

Haydee Ibarra, right, watches as her daughter gets her eyes examined by ophthalmologist John Hwang on Dec. 14, 2011.

Melinda was born premature at 24 weeks over the summer and spent the early months cocooned in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit in Southern California. Almost every day, her 22-year-old mother sits at her bedside and stays overnight whenever she can.

The day before her Thursday due date, Haydee Ibarra visited Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center where her daughter has been since her birth in late August. Melinda is believed to be the second smallest baby to survive in the U.S. and third in the world.

Jae C. Hong / AP

Haydee Ibarra holds Melinda on Dec. 14, 2011.

Jae C. Hong / AP

Melinda holds her mother's little finger on Dec. 14.

Ibarra caressed Melinda through the portholes of the incubator where nurses pinned up a homemade sign bearing her name. Now weighing four pounds, Melinda gripped Ibarra's pinky finger and yawned.

"Melinda, Melinda," she cooed at her daughter dressed in a polka dot onesie. "You're awake today." Read the full story.

Ajit Solanki / AP

Newly born children are seen at a hospital in Ahmadabad, India, Friday, Nov. 11. Because of the day's numerical conjunction, 11/11/11, people believe it to be an auspicious day with many expectant parents hoping to deliver their child today.

Sutanta Aditya / AFP - Getty Images

A nurse at a private hospital in Medan in Sumatra island attends to one of the 25 babies born both through natural birth and caesarean section births on Nov 11. More births and weddings took place in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country on the date

Anupam Nath / AP

A nurse takes care of new born babies at a hospital in Gauhati, India, Friday, Nov. 11.

Related stories:

• Baby Boom: moms eager to deliver on 11/11/11
• Woman born at 11:11 am celebrates 50th birthday today

Erik De Castro / AFP - Getty Images

A newly born baby girl named Danica May Camacho, the Philippines' symbolic seven billionth baby, is weighed in the Fabella Maternity hospital in Manila on October 31. The world's population will reach seven billion on October 31, according to projections by the United Nations, which says this global milestone presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the planet.

After all of the build-up, it seems the U.N. has decided that there should be more than one 7-billionth baby. Let the circus begin...

msnbc.com staff and news services report:

A string of festivities are being held worldwide, with a series of symbolic 7-billionth babies being born.

The celebrations began in the Philippines, where baby Danica May Camacho was greeted with cheers and an explosion of photographers' flashbulbs at Manila's Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Danica, whose name means morning star, had been chosen by the U.N. to be one of a number of symbolic 7 billionth babies. It is not known who the actual baby is.

Erik De Castro / Reuters

Midwives hold Danica May Camacho up for the cameras.

Danica arrived two minutes before midnight Sunday, but doctors decided that was close enough to count for a Monday birthday. 

The baby received a shower of gifts, from a chocolate cake marked "7B Philippines" to a gift certificate for shoes.

"She looks so lovely," the mother, Camille Galura, whispered as she cradled the 5.5-pound baby, who was born about a month premature. Read the full story.

Ted Aljibe / AFP - Getty Images

Danica May Camacho is coddled by her mother Camille as United Nations resident coordinator Jacqui Badcock, left, hands over a gift and Philippine Health Secretary Enrique Ona, right, looks on, during a welcoming ceremony after she was born at a government-run maternity hospital in Manila. Weighing 2.5 kilos, the baby was delivered shortly before midnight October 30 amid an explosion of flash bulbs from a media contingent that had waited for hours at the delivery room.

See more PhotoBlog posts related to the seven billion population milestone:

• World's largest family: 1 husband, 39 wives, 94 children
• Managing a growing world population with a shrinking water supply
• China's middle class booms, but aging population threatens prosperity
• Nations' birth rates rise and fall: Philippines welcomes 200 babies an hour
• 7 billion people tax the world's environment
• What do 7 billion people look like?
• Room for more? Squeeze in, the world population is about to hit 7 billion

Ali Uzun / Turkish Ministry of Health via Reuters

Earthquake survivor Semiha Karaduman holds her two-week old baby girl, Azra, at a hospital in Ankara October 26, 2011. Rescuers pulled Azra alive from a collapsed apartment block on Tuesday, two days after the earthquake in southeast Turkey. Semiha and the baby's grandmother were also brought out alive.

They are still looking for survivors as well as rushing to provide shelter to those left homeless as temperatures drop and snow falls. Full story. 

Watch the video below to hear how she managed to save her newborn.

Reuters

Rescue workers carry a baby from a collapsed building in Ercis, October 25, 2011. A 14-day-old baby was rescued alive from the rubble of a collapsed building on Tuesday, 46 hours after an earthquake struck southeast Turkey.

Tolga Bozoglu / EPA

Rescue workers carry baby Azra, two weeks old, after they pulled her out from a collapsed building, in Ercis, October 25.

We’re just hearing now that they were able to also rescue the baby's mother who was trapped under the debris. Full story.

More photos from rescue efforts in Turkey in our slideshow.

Angelika Warmuth / AFP - Getty Images

Two lion cubs look peer out from under a tree trunk at the Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg on Thursday, June 23.

Angelika Warmuth / AFP - Getty Images

A lion cub plays with its mother's tail at the Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg, Germany on Thursday, June 23.

Angelika Warmuth / AFP - Getty Images

Lion cubs play at the Hagenbeck zoo in Hamburg on June 23. The cubs were born on March 31, 2011 at the zoo.

Here's my latest nominee for the cutest thing ever. I still think my original post of the baby emperor penguin takes the crown.

Need another reason to start your day with a smile? Check out our weekly roundup of amazing animal images. Or take a look at past nominees for the cutest thing ever.

Beatrice Debut / AFP - Getty Images

Plastic heads and limbs of 'reborn babies', dolls which will be made to look just like real babies, are displayed at the reborn babies fair in Brentwood, England on February 27.

"She reminds me of my daughter when she was a child," says Eve Hasty . Weighing around 11 pounds, with perfectly combed hair and her eyes closed in sleep, Abby looks like a baby girl. But she is a doll, adopted by a grieving mother to help her come to terms with the loss of a child.

"She brings me peace of mind when I take her in my arms, when I change her clothes," says the 57-year-old retiree from Oklahoma, who had a daughter who died from leukemia at the age of 7.

Beatrice Debut / AFP - Getty Images

Finished 'reborn babies', dolls which are made to look just like real babies, on sale at the reborn babies fair in Brentwood, England on February 27.

The doll was crafted by Nikki Hunn, a British graphic designer who now specializes in making reborn babies. AFP photographer Beatrice Debut took these pictures of Hunn's dolls at a fair in Brentwood, east of London, in February. Hunn says that she has built around half a dozen dolls for women who have lost a child, but that the majority of her customers are simply passionate about dolls.

Beatrice Debut / AFP - Getty Images

Plastic heads and limbs of Nikki Hunn's 'reborn babies', dolls which are made to look just like real babies.

You can read Beatrice Debut's full article (in French) at Luxembourg newspaper Le Quotidien.

Mike Celizic of Today.com also investigated the lifelike doll phenomenon in 2008.