Kaylee’s health journey began at 16 with peritonitis, leading to major abdominal surgery that would impact her future. For years, she dealt with chronic pain and fatigue, often being misdiagnosed: “Words like endometriosis were never mentioned. It was always like IBS or there was always something else that they wanted to look at… But something as obvious as endo was not even mentioned to me back then.”

After years of being told pregnancy might be difficult, Kaylee discovered she was pregnant while in Nashville. “My flatmate, Sinead, and I were out getting groceries. In America, you can buy everything at the grocery store. She’s like, ‘let’s just get a pregnancy test while you’re here.’ Literally, let’s just rule it out… Nick always laughs, he’s like, ‘you literally had like a shock nod, like, I just nodding for about an hour.'”

She continued performing through early pregnancy, including a significant tour with Kane Brown in Australia. “We hadn’t really been telling anybody, but we went out on tour with Kane and it was just getting really obvious… I think that was a blessing because it made me have to talk about it, which I think was actually a really amazing thing too, and connect with other females.”

At 37 weeks, Kaylee’s pregnancy took a dramatic turn when she was diagnosed with DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis). “I woke up on Boxing Day, one of my thighs was like twice the size of my other thigh… We jumped in the car, went straight to the hospital in Timaru. And yeah, they were like, straight away, that’s definitely a blood clot, DVT. So we were straight into hospital, straight on blood thinners.”

The DVT diagnosis significantly impacted her birth options, leading to a planned cesarean: “It just needed to be a really controlled birth… They put me on like a blood infusion for 24 hours, which meant that if I went into labor, they could control how much blood thinners were in my system so they could stop them straight away.”

Kaylee spent 10 days in hospital recovering and establishing breastfeeding, dealing with tongue-tie issues. “Breastfeeding is something we don’t talk about enough… The way I describe it is like getting a blister from your pair of shoes but having to keep running on that blister for weeks. It’s really something else.”

Despite ongoing health challenges, Kaylee is embracing both motherhood and her music career. “We’ll still be playing a lot of shows on this side of the world. We’ll be headlining touring New Zealand and Australia later in the year. I’ve got an album coming out… I just wanted to have the chance to have a family and play music because why should we miss out just because it’s something that has this strange stigma around?”

Her story is particularly inspiring as she joins the ranks of performing artists who successfully balance motherhood and career, including a recent collaboration with The Wiggles. “I really bonded with Katarina. She’d just had her two twin girls… seeing her doing it and still continuing with the career, having the babies there, it was just like, this is exactly what I want to be doing.”

Kaylee’s journey reminds us that while the path to motherhood isn’t always straightforward, it can lead to beautiful outcomes we never expected. Her story of resilience, adaptation, and finding joy in the unexpected serves as inspiration for others navigating similar challenges.

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