A baby girl is born in Black Rock City
By Ashley Harrell, National Parks Bureau Chief
Aug 29, 2025 (SFGate.com)
Burning Man attendee Kayla gave birth to a baby girl during this year’s festival in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.Courtesy of Kayla’s family
On Wednesday morning at Burning Man, the raging dust storms and torrential rain had mostly come to a halt. But for one woman camped in a recreational vehicle in the middle of the playa, a different sort of cataclysm was imminent.
Kayla, who asked to be identified only by her first name to protect her family’s privacy, awakened to the feeling of needing to use the restroom, she told SFGATE. Soon after that came the cramps — really, really bad ones. “Within 10 to 15 minutes of me starting to cramp, I just felt like something weird was going on,” Kayla said. “It felt like something needed to come out.”
As it turned out, Kayla was eight months pregnant. She didn’t know that, though, and was unaware she was about to give birth in the middle of the wildest, weirdest, dustiest desert festival on the planet. “We legit 100 percent had no idea that we were expecting,” said Kayla’s husband Kasey, who also asked to be identified only by his first name.
“Cryptic pregnancies” are more common than one might think, accounting for 1 out of every 2,500 childbirths and amounting to 1,600 surprise births in the U.S. each year, according to the National Library of Medicine.
The Salt Lake City couple spoke with SFGATE over the phone from a hospital in Reno, recounting the harrowing and deeply emotional experience of unexpectedly becoming new parents while at Burning Man.
Their time in the desert began much like the rest of the estimated 70,000 Burners who showed up to the playa this year — dusty and wet. “It was a struggle from the moment we got there,” Kasey said.
On the first day, their camp — named Way Way Super Good — blew over, and all the poles for their shade structure broke. They woke up and rebuilt, but then the rain came and flooded everything. So then they had to tear it all down and rebuild again.
There was just one night when they got to bike around the playa, but there wasn’t a whole lot to see at that point, Kasey said. Then Wednesday morning came around, and he noticed something was wrong with Kayla.
“My wife went to the bathroom, came back, and I could tell she was in a little discomfort,” he said. “I could tell, just in her face. I was asking her, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’ She’s like, ‘I’m OK. I’m OK. I’m just starting to cramp a little bit.’”
Kasey left the RV for a few minutes, and when he returned, his brother gave him a heads-up that things were not OK. “You need to get in there right away,” Kasey remembers being told. “Kayla’s not in good shape.”
Luckily, a few medical professionals were camped near Way Way Super Good. Kasey rounded them up and brought them to the RV, where Kayla was back in the bathroom. She had been cramping for about 15 minutes, she estimates, when the professionals showed up and began assessing the situation.
After a few more short minutes of what turned out to be labor, she gave birth to a baby girl.
Kayla was in total shock.
Kasey was in “a straight panic,” knowing his baby had been born “in the middle of the most harsh desert on the planet.”
He ran out of the RV and started yelling for anyone and everyone to come help. And right away, more medical professionals began appearing. There was an obstetrician-gynecologist in his underwear who happened to be walking by. A neurologist showed up. A nurse with experience delivering babies ran over from a nearby camp.
“It was the most beautiful thing,” Kasey said. “In a matter of minutes, we had everyone we needed … It was the scariest moment of my life, also the most magical, like just seeing the people just come together, complete strangers, just coming to our rescue.”
Kasey distinctly remembers scrambling to find scissors in the camp to cut the umbilical cord. When they couldn’t find any, he remembers the OB-GYN saying, “We need a string right now.”
They used that to cut the cord, Kasey said, and around that time, a nurse who works for Stanford Medical Center was ripping plastic bags off her feet — which had been in place for mud-walking — and entering the RV.
Maureen O’Reilly had worked as a neonatal critical care transport nurse, and knowing everything she does about newborns, she immediately identified the situation as “gnarly.” As to the unexpected nature of the pregnancy, O’Reilly emphasized that sometimes pregnant women continue getting their periods, or they have other medical issues that make it harder to tell they are pregnant.
During a hospital delivery, there would be tools like suction, and a way to give a baby breaths, she told SFGATE. This baby, which O’Reilly immediately noticed was on the small side and not full-term, would have none of those resources. It was terrifying. She rinsed her hands and put gloves on.
“Give me that baby,” she said.
Upon receiving the newborn, O’Reilly pulled her shirt up and placed the baby on her belly for skin-to-skin contact. The baby started crying, and that was a good sign. O’Reilly studied the baby’s color, tone and breathing, assessing and stimulating her.
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She wrapped the baby in a dry towel that “appeared actually pretty clean, considering how bad things are out here with the weather and the, you know, mud everywhere,” she said.
To keep the baby warm, someone fetched a hot water bottle and wrapped it in a towel, and O’Reilly kept the baby on her stomach until Burning Man’s medical staff arrived.
In her 13 years of attendance at Burning Man, it was the wildest thing she’s ever experienced on the playa, O’Reilly said.
From there, the couple and their baby were transported to Rampart, Burning Man’s emergency health care facility, where a plan came together for getting everyone to a hospital in Reno. Another of Rampart’s patients had had a stroke, Kasey said, and needed to be airlifted to Reno as well. It meant the couple had to send their baby on the helicopter by herself.
“Kayla and I had to ride in the ambulance, which was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” he said. “It took like an hour, hour and a half just to get off the playa, and then another two hours from the main road to get to Reno.”
Eventually, they all arrived safely at the hospital. The baby weighed in at 3 pounds, 9.6 ounces and measured 16.5 inches long. She went straight to the neonatal intensive care unit and will likely be there for a couple of weeks, Kayla said. The couple expressed regret that they had to write Reno on the birth certificate instead of Black Rock City.
Kasey’s parents showed up with clean clothes, and Kasey’s sister launched a GoFundMe to help the couple with the impending medical bills and other costs associated with having a child.
Burning Man Project, the organization that puts on the festival, extended congratulations and well-wishes to the family in an emailed statement. “In the midst of wind, heat, and storms, they brought new life into the world in Black Rock City,” the statement reads. “Of all the things we celebrate at Burning Man, bringing life, connection, transformation, and joy are dearest to our hearts.”
Because the Burning Man birth has already been the subject of several news stories that are thin on information, judgmental comments are mounting on social media, and baseless rumors about drug use during the birth have been circulating around the festival. The couple denied that any drugs were involved.
Another rumor the couple would like to put to rest is that their baby’s name might be “Puddles.” They never considered that one, they said, but did think about Stormy, Sandy and Rainy.
Ultimately, they settled on Aurora.
“She was born at dawn, and she lights up the sky, and she’s going to be a special little girl,” Kasey said. “So I feel like the name Aurora is very fitting for her.”
Asked if they’ll ever go back to Burning Man, Kasey didn’t hesitate.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “I have the most special gift, a little daughter, and she has to go back to her birthplace.”
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Read all our reporting from Burning Man.
Aug 29, 2025
NATIONAL PARKS BUREAU CHIEF
Ashley Harrell is the national parks bureau chief at SFGATE, where she’s worked since 2020. She recently co-authored the National Geographic book “100 Beaches of a Lifetime: The World’s Ultimate Shorelines,” and has reported from 17 countries, working on more than 50 travel guidebooks. Her story about human-turtle conflict on Hawaii’s Poipu Beach won gold in the environmental and sustainable tourism category of the Lowell Thomas Awards in 2024. Send story tips or comments to ashley.harrell@sfgate.com.