After Two Miscarriages, Irwin Mom Kaitlin Blake Labored 37 Hours Before an Emergency C-Section Delivered Her ‘Double Rainbow’ Baby, Adalyn

Baby Adalyn Blake came into the world on June 4, 2026, after her mother spent about 37 hours in labor and then needed an emergency C-section. For Kaitlin Blake of Irwin, Pennsylvania, her arrival followed two miscarriages, which is why she calls her daughter a “double rainbow” baby.

Blake, a case manager from Westmoreland County, shared the story as part of Pittsburgh station WPXI’s “The Colors of Hope” series, which features local women who have experienced pregnancy loss. WPXI reported that Adalyn is the couple’s first child. Blake said miscarriage is “not talked about enough.”

Two Losses Before Adalyn

Kaitlin and her husband, Adam, married in 2025. According to the version of the WPXI story carried on Yahoo News, the pair bonded over exploring, travel and adventure, and they planned to start a family quickly. It did not go the way they had pictured.

Blake had two miscarriages. She told the station that the project meant a lot to her for exactly that reason. She said miscarriage is not discussed enough, that more support is needed, and that people often go back to work the day after one.

Miscarriage is more common than many families realize. MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine’s health information service, defines a miscarriage as the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks and says that among women who know they are pregnant, about 10% to 25% have one. The same page says most are caused by chromosome problems that keep the baby from developing, and that for most couples a past miscarriage does not lower the chance of a healthy baby later. It adds that pregnancy can often occur right away, though waiting one normal menstrual cycle before trying again is suggested. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the NIH, cites the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ estimate that early pregnancy loss occurs in about 10% of confirmed pregnancies.

Numbers like these did not make the next pregnancy easy. Even after the Blakes felt ready to try again, Kaitlin said the strain stayed with her. Anxiety, especially in the first trimester, took much of the joy out of the pregnancy and made it hard to announce the news or get excited.

A 37-Hour Labor and an Emergency C-Section

Blake said she was about a week and a half past her due date when her labor was scheduled to be induced. Induction is a common step in that situation. The Mayo Clinic says doctors may consider it when labor has not started on its own one or two weeks after the due date, and that it can take anywhere from minutes to several hours for labor to begin.

For Blake, labor lasted about 37 hours. It ended with an emergency cesarean delivery. MedlinePlus explains that a C-section is a surgical delivery through an incision in the mother’s abdomen, that roughly one in three U.S. births is a cesarean, and that some are done in an emergency when unexpected problems come up during labor or delivery.

Nothing about that day matched the picture Blake had carried through the pregnancy. She had spent months imagining how it would go, and an induction that stretched past a day and a half before turning into surgery was far from it.

Blake said the birth was very different from the one she had planned, which was hard after nine months of imagining it. She still said it was worth it, and that she would do it again.

The couple chose not to learn the baby’s sex ahead of time. They had expected a boy, Blake said, and she was excited to meet a girl.

What a “Double Rainbow” Baby Means

A “rainbow baby” is the term many families use for a healthy child born after a pregnancy loss. Blake calls Adalyn her “double rainbow baby” because she arrived after two of them. The phrase became the title of the WPXI piece: “A ‘double rainbow’ after the storm: Irwin couple welcomes first child.”

The series behind the story was led by photographer Amber Bowers of Shutterbean Photographs. It ran over several months and followed women who were all due within a few weeks of each other. Bowers said she wanted to give these women an outlet. She has a rainbow baby herself, her daughter Tallia, born after a pregnancy loss almost a decade ago, and she described that period as very hard.

For Blake, the project was personal, since she had been through two losses herself.

Bowers said she focuses on the babies after her losses rather than on the grief, and she hopes the photo shoots help the other women heal.

Where Blake Hopes the Conversation Goes

Blake’s message is simple. In her words, miscarriage needs more attention, and women who go through one need more support than they usually get. MedlinePlus adds that sadness after a miscarriage is normal for both women and their partners, and that anyone whose feelings do not ease should seek advice from family, friends and a health care provider.

Other families have told similar stories of loss followed by a baby, including an Idaho couple who endured five losses before an adoption call arrived.

For the Blakes, the story now has a happy chapter, one that began on a day that did not go to plan. Adalyn arrived in June, a first child for a couple who waited through two losses and an anxious pregnancy to meet her.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: “Double-Rainbow” by User:LeonardoWeiss is licensed under CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons