FRISCO, Texas — Denise and John Newton vividly remember the day their triplets were born.
Born premature, the Newton babies spent weeks in the hospital before they could come home. Son Davis and daughter Brantley-Kate came home after 14 weeks. Rees came home after 17 weeks.
"It was the slowest ride home on an Atlanta interstate you have ever seen," John said. "They were precious cargo."
Rees would spend close to a year in the hospital before he was home for good. "He is the strongest person I have ever met...ever," Denise said.
Every day Rees works through mental and physical disabilities to finish his senior year at Frisco High School in Frisco ISD. "We're very close until we start playing [board] games, then we get very competitive," Brantley-Kate said.
The other thing parents remember: When a child leaves home after high school for that next step.
Brantley-Kate and Davis got early-acceptance into Mississippi State University. "I didn't know what to do if they went off to college and [Rees] didn't get that experience," Denise said.
Rees and the family looked into a highly competitive program for students with special needs at Mississippi State called ACCESS. It would give him the tools to live independently.
MSU ACCESS is a "100 percent inclusive, 4-year, non-degree program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities that provides an opportunity for students with IDD to successfully transition into higher education," according to MSU's website.
The Newtons did interviews and took tests and waited for weeks for an answer from the college.
Last week, an answer finally came in the form of a phone call that Denise took. Rees got accepted into Mississippi State.
For their father, an MSU alumnus, it was a moment of pride. "It was up there with their birth, to be quite honest," John said.
And Rees, the young man who was not supposed to make it, made it to college. "I wanna stay with them in college, so I'm not far away from them," he said.
It means four more years together. It also means mom and dad are soon empty-nesters. "That's a little daunting. That's going to be tough," John and Denise said.