Kimberly Fugate was in her 40s and living a quiet life with her husband Craig and her 10 year old daughter Katelyn.
But 2013 was the year that everything would change. Kimberly had started to feel terrible, and had no idea why.
But when she went to the doctor, she received some huge news. She was pregnant – in her 13th week…
Not only that, but she was pregnant with triplets. Unbelievably, she had conceived the triplets naturally, without the help of IVF.
Kimberly and her family were shocked, and felt like they hardly had any time at all to prepare for the new arrivals.
Falling pregnant with triplets in your 40s is extremely rare.
“It’s all been rather overwhelming when you think about how many changes will have to be made. But I am just trying to take everything one day at a time. I know it will all work out,” Kimberly said at the time.
Just before Kimberly’s 42nd birthday, when she was in her 28th week, she gave birth to three identical girls.
But as if that wasn’t enough, there was another big piece of news on its way. In the delivery room, the doctor told her that there was one more baby on its way.
“They had gotten the three out, and they said, ‘More feet.’ I said, ‘No!’ It was an instant shock,” Kimberly says.
It wasn’t triplets: Kimberly and Craig had quintuplets, and they could not believe their eyes.
The girls were named Kenleigh Rosa, Kristen Sue, Kayleigh Pearl och Kelsey Roxanne.
The couple’s doctor James Bofill was also blown over by the news, and says that he thought the hospital staff were joking when they told him they had delivered quadruplets.
Kimberly and Craig were blessed with 4 sweet and tiny baby girls who weighed between 2 and 2½ pounds.
But all of the girls were critically ill.
They had to spend over three months in the NICU and needed help breathing Since they were born with such tiny lungs, the precious babies needed to be on ventilators for a long time.
Their first months in life were like a roller coaster, but fortunately, the girls gained weight each day and were doing really well at the hospital.
After the birth, Kimberly described how happy she was to be a new mom again to these four little angels.
Her babies were the biggest surprise of her life – but as soon as they arrived in the world, she couldn’t imagine her life without them.
“Just getting up in the morning and seeing the smiles on their faces, hearing them coo at me, and listening to them babble at each other — the joy is overwhelming,” she told Little Things, and continues:
“I know every mom is partial to her babies, but I feel like I have the prettiest babies with the prettiest smiles. And those dimples…The babies were the biggest surprise of my life, and I couldn’t imagine my life without them.”
In May 2016, the babies were back at the hospital where they were born to meet the nurses who helped deliver them.
Now the girls are 7 years old, and are still seriously cute! In the picture above, they’re celebrating the 4th of July as 3-year-olds.
The Mississippi mother says she’s the ‘luckiest mom in the whole world’ and adds:
“I believed that God picked me to have these quadruplets, and I felt that He would take care of them and allow them to survive. To see how far they’ve come makes me feel very blessed.”
Most people think the quadruplets are identical, but mom Kimberly has long since learned to tell them apart.
The family still shares updates on their Facebook page, and the last post is from last year, when the four babies celebrated their seventh birthday.