SHAELEY Moody is worth every second of her proud mum’s agonising wait.

After 18 years of trying to have a baby, encompassing four failed pregnancies and a horrific car accident, Tracy Moody, 40, still can’t believe it when she looks at her tiny, fragile daughter.

Shaeley was born 15 weeks premature and weighing less than 700g last Thursday.

“I still can’t fathom that I have had her, having waited so many long years. She is so precious. She is like a miracle for me,” her mother said.

“She is perfect. She is all there — 10 fingers and 10 toes, and she is all mine.

“It has always been my dream of having a child, because I love kids to death.

“For 18 years, it was hard to keep faith, but if you have a dream you have to follow it and not give up. So that is what I did, and she is the end result: my precious miracle.”

Yesterday Shaeley’s underdeveloped lungs began working for the first time.

Staff in the Mercy Hospital for Women’s neonatal intensive care unit took her off a ventilator and put her on a continuous airway pressure machine to boost breathing.

However there will be plenty more nervous times over the next three months as Shaeley battles complications from her early birth.

Fighting for a child is nothing new to Ms Moody. By 1997, she had already suffered three miscarriages and an ectopic pregnancy.

Two days before Christmas 1997, as she was organising her first round of IVF, she suffered severe injuries to her left leg, lower back, neck and right shoulder in a car crash.

As she learnt to live with permanent disabilities, she was told she could never become pregnant. But for the next 11 years she tried, never giving up hope.

She said she almost collapsed on learning she had become pregnant naturally, and accidentally, last year.

However from the first day, there were complications. And her disabilities meant she could not give birth naturally; an emergency caesarean was done after six days of a dangerously early labour.

“It took me about three months to realise I was pregnant, and then all of a sudden she was here. She hasn’t given me much to time comprehend conceiving her,” Ms Moody said.

“It was touch and go, so I just thank God for every day she is here. And she seems to be getting stronger and stronger. It’s prayers every day and fingers crossed.”

The Mercy has organised Melbourne accommodation for the Alexandra resident so mother and daughter can spend every day together.

Ms Moody said she suffers panic attacks every night when she leaves the hospital.

“Emotionally, it just drains you,” she said.

“If you want something bad enough, you will wait and you will keep the dream alive. And that is what I have done.”

Article & photo from: