RALEIGH - Allison Reid was born at Rex Hospital on the first day of March 2002, a sunshiny day that also happened to be her father's birthday.

She was the second child, the second daughter, for Robin and Sean Reid, and they brought her home two days after her birth to a robin's-egg blue room filled with Beanie Babies.

On her 19th day in this world, her dad gave her a bottle at 6:30 a.m. Later that morning, her breathing became labored, and her mother took Allison to the doctor.

A spinal tap revealed meningitis. Allison stayed in the hospital for nearly six weeks. During that time, she had six strokes and suffered profound brain damage.

Doctors couldn't predict her future. Maybe she would live for a year. Maybe 40.

She got sick a lot. In late January, her illness prompted her mother to keep Allison home from her special-needs kindergarten class at Stough Elementary School for a few days.

But that Thursday was picture day, and by then, Allison felt better. She went to school wearing black velvet pants and a pink polka-dot shirt. She smiled for her school portrait. The next day she died.

Her parents aren't certain what caused her death, but they do know what sparked the meningitis: group B strep bacteria.

About a quarter of women carry the bacteria at any given time. Women have no symptoms but can transmit the bacteria to their babies during birth, leading to pneumonia, meningitis or death. Most obstetrics practices test women for the bacteria at 35 to 37 weeks of pregnancy.

Intravenous antibiotics during labor can kill some of the bacteria and halt transmission. But doctors consider antibiotics ineffective against what is called late-onset GBS, which can develop a week to several months after birth. That's what happened to Allison.

Though she couldn't talk, Allison conveyed her desires by squealing. At Hilburn Drive Elementary School, where she attended preschool beginning at age 3, Allison began each day accompanied by her big sister, Brianna. Brianna would find Allison a toy to play with and help her sign with a crayon on the attendance sheet.

At school, she used a voice output device to participate in song sessions. When the class sang her favorite song, "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," she could join in by flipping a switch to trigger a recorded voice trilling the words.

Allison loved to finger paint or wield a paintbrush. "The next thing you knew, she'd painted the side of her face," said her teacher, Amanda Hummel.

At nearly 6 years old, Allison had the abilities of a 6-month-old. She conversed in a singsong babble and constantly made sounds to get her point across or express her moods.

"There were some days where you'd be like, 'Oh my god, Allison, stop,' " Robin Reid said. She laughed at the memory.

Allison would bang on her wheelchair tray to show excitement. She'd cry loudly to convey frustration.

Most of the time, though, Allison was happy. She loved to laugh, loved to listen to music, loved her big sister.

Her happiness stood in sharp contrast to how her parents felt when they took her home from the hospital that second time. They were angry. Their baby had lost 40 percent of her brain matter. She would never walk or talk, crawl or sit.

The Reids decided to channel their fury. "We needed to do something good with it or it would kill us and eat us alive," Reid said.

At www.AllisonHugs.org, they chronicled their story and wrote about group B strep.

"I want to tell as many people as I can," Reid said. "I attack pregnant women in the grocery store and say, 'Have you been tested yet?' I don't think women realize the seriousness of this."

On the Web site, the Reids introduced their Hug Bags. The bags, essentially care packages of toiletries the Reids send to pediatric ICUs across the country for distribution to distraught parents, are a way for them to distill meaning from their tragedy.

When they rushed to the hospital the day Allison was diagnosed with meningitis, they had no toothbrush and no time to dash to the gift shop to buy one. Doctors cautioned them that Allison might not make it through the next hour. They were not about to leave her side.

With Allison gone, her parents are wondering how to perpetuate her legacy. In so many ways, life has gotten easier. But it's also so much more melancholy.

In tribute to Allison, the Reids want to expand their Web site. They may create a grant program for a family who might need a wheelchair or a special bath chair. Robin Reid plans to volunteer at a therapeutic riding program she had hoped Allison would participate in one day.

In the meantime, Allison's most recent school pictures of a grinning, wheelchair-bound 5-year-old sheathed in polka dots adorn the Reids' home. Sean Reid says it's starting to resemble a shrine.

Robin Reid doesn't disagree.

"It is," she said. "It has to be."

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Allison Morgan Reid is survived by her parents and sister and both sets of grandparents.

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