Surviving Middle Georgia quintuplet leaves nest for college

When Kaylee Grace Smith was the tiniest of baby girls, I wrote this in her memory book:

“It was great to meet you! I look forward to hearing about your first word, your first tooth, your first day of school, and your wedding day! Stay sweet and take good care of your mama and daddy.’’

That was 18 years ago, when she was one of the five “Special K’s” from McRae who were born at the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon in March 2006.

She was the only quintuplet who survived, and the collective grief of this community has been tempered by the blessings of this amazing young lady as she passed life’s mile markers.

Kaylee Grace will report for her freshman year at Georgia Southern University next week, and Kaydee Roberson’s emotions are running higher than most parents whose firstborn child is leaving the nest for college.

Statesboro is only 55 miles from their home in Glenwood, and Kaydee promises she will not hover like the proverbial “helicopter mom.’’ But, yes, she can be there in less than an hour without strapping a rocket on her back. 

“She’s my best friend,’’ she said of her daughter.

Then she laughed.

“I know my phone is going to ring 20 times a day,’’ Kaydee said. “She will be close enough that I can sneak up there for dinner.’’ 

In many ways, Kaylee Grace is the perfect child, the All-American girl from humble beginnings. She made straight A’s at Wheeler County High School and was a member of the Beta Club. She served as captain of the cheer squad and was involved with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Future Farmers of America.

She is active at First Love Ministries in Perry and Connection Church in Vidalia.  This is her last week working as a receptionist at Little Ocmulgee Electric Membership Corporation in Alamo. She also is a huge fan of the Macon Mayhem. Imagine that. A small-town Southern girl falling in love with a hockey team.

 It’s not surprising she plans to study to become a pediatric nurse, given the way she arrived in the world.

 “She has put the Lord first in everything she does and every decision she makes,’’ Kaydee said. “She is special in ways that I honestly can’t put into words. She is focused and driven, wise beyond her years. And she is headstrong. Otherwise, she would not have survived.’’

Kaydee had a miscarriage during her first pregnancy in 2004. The following year, she was taking low doses of a fertility drug when she learned she was pregnant again. 

At the doctor’s office in Dublin, the nurse showed her the sonogram.  There was a snapshot of a baby. And another. And another. And another.

Wait, the nurse said, there was still one more – hiding in the corner. 

That turned out to be Kaylee. 

The three girls would be known as Kaylee Grace, Karlee Annabelle and Kennadee Faith. The two boys would be named Kooper William and Kolton Ross.

Kaydee was shocked. She had prayed for God to send her a baby. But five at the same time? The odds of having quintuplets were about 1 in 57 million. 

Soon she was “eating for six.’’ Every two hours, it seemed, someone was sticking a hamburger or a milkshake in her face. The Smith’s house was stocked with everything from diapers to high chairs. Two bedrooms were converted to nurseries, one painted blue for the boys and the other pink for the girls. 

Because of her high-risk pregnancy, her doctors were hopeful she could at least make it through the 28th week of her pregnancy.  She began having contractions way too early … on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day. She was sent home after three days, with strict orders for bed rest.

Three weeks later, on March 4, her water broke. She spent the next 17 days in labor. That’s right, 17 days … not 17 hours.

Karlee, who was Kaylee’s identical twin inside the womb, was born on March 5.  She weighed just 1 pound, 5 ounces and died two days later.

Kooper, Kennadee, Kolton, and Kaylee were all born by Cesarean section on March 22, the 26th week of Kaydee’s pregnancy. The cherry blossoms were blooming in Macon.

Kooper, who weighed 1 pound, 12 ounces, died on March 26. Kennadee, who was 1 pound, 7 ounces, died three days later, on the same day as Kooper’s funeral. Kolton, the heaviest of the quints at 1 pound, 15 ounces, died on the final day of March. He and Kennadee were buried on the same day.

Kaylee, the little fighter, was 12 inches long and weighed 1 pound, 7 ounces  – as light as a loaf of bread.  She stayed in the hospital for 102 days.

Kaydee returned home with a heavy heart. She felt a sense of guilt that she had let down the joyful expectations of everyone in Telfair County. She was overprotective of her fragile baby girl, rarely leaving the house to protect Kaylee’s immune system. In the nursery,  she would place her hand on her daughter’s tiny chest. Her fingers reached to feel the rise and fall of each breath and to listen to the soft rhythms of Kaylee’s heart. 

It took her a year before she found the inner strength to visit the graves of the four infants, buried side by side at the cemetery in Helena. On Kaylee’s first birthday, Kaydee was three months pregnant with her son, Konner, who was born on Sept. 4, 2007.

“I told Kaylee about her birth story when she was about 4 or 5 years old,’’ Kaydee said. “I wanted her to know before she went to kindergarten. You know how the other kids can be. She might not be old enough to process it, but I did not want her to be surprised.’’

The grief never fully retreated, and Kaydee and her husband, Kory, went to marriage counseling. They divorced in 2010. They have both since remarried.

“If there is such a thing as a positive divorce, we have had it,’’ Kaydee said. “It was very respectful and mutual. He is a wonderful dad. We made a pact that neither Kaylee nor her brother would ever walk away from a school event – an awards ceremony or a ballgame – and try to decide which parent to go to first because we would be there together.’’

Kaylee Grace was the last of the quintuplets to be given a middle name. At first, her mother didn’t want to call her Grace, a popular name at the time. But she loved the sound of it. And it fit.

“I think nothing is more precious and Southern than a double name,’’ Kaydee said. “Once I realized that Grace meant ‘goodness’ and ‘generosity’ and knew that God spared her life, Kaylee Grace it was. She is the epitome of the love and mercy freely given by God.’’

In her senior photo in the yearbook, Kaylee is holding two blue and two pink balloons. Her high school graduation photo had been planned out for a long time.

“I had envisioned that photo her whole life,’’ said her mother.

Kaydee worked with a local photographer, Julie Bridges, to have Kaylee pictured in her cap and gown in front of  Wheeler County High School. Bridges took a series of photographs of Kaylee and used two as silhouettes to represent her sisters. Her brother, Konner, and step-brother, Dalton Roberson, struck graduation poses for shadow images of Kolton and Kooper.

They were superimposed on the photograph to depict the “Special K’s” – all there to celebrate her graduation.

 “We always go to the cemetery and release balloons on their birthdays, and Kaylee lights candles on her birthday for the others,’’ Kaydee said. “They have always been a part of us.’’

Ed Grisamore has been a journalist in Macon and Middle Georgia for more than 45 years. He received the 2024 John Holliman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. He was the recipient of the 2010 Will Rogers Humanitarian Award, presented by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Grisamore has won first-place awards from the Georgia Press Association in five categories and has written nine books.