‘Survivor’ Winner Earl Cole and Wife Shelley Welcome Second Child

Survivor winner Earl Cole and his wife, Shelley recently welcomed their second child.

Cole, 48, shared an extreme close-up of the couple’s new daughter, Alani, on Instagram May 11 to share the news.

“A Happy Mother’s Day, indeed,” he wrote, adding a heart-eyes emoji and the hashtags “beautiful babies,” “great genes,” “twice charmed,” “finally home” and “Alani.”

Although Cole waited until Mother’s Day weekend to announce Alani’s birth, the baby was born back on Jan. 17, three months early. Alani was born weighing 2 lbs., 7 oz. and finally went home with her mother on April 30.

“In January, my wife out of nowhere was washing dishes in the kitchen and started bleeding so we went to the hospital for a check-up,” Cole explained to Entertainment Tonight on May 4. “No one thought much of it, as this can be common with pregnancies. They monitored her overnight to be safe. The next day we were told that they would have to do an emergency C-section.”

Cole said the couple is “overjoyed” to have their baby finally home.

“She has overcome all challenges in the three-plus months she was in the NICU, and has developed perfectly normal,” Cole said of his daughter. “It was very worrisome and scary each day, as you never know what might happen during her development and progression being born three months premature, but she took it all like the champ that she is! Proud father of two beautiful little girls, a gigantic dog, and one amazing wife!”

As for Shelley, she is now “doing great physically,” but Cole said it has “been pretty tough” emotionally for them.

The two announced Shelley was pregnant again during daughter Kaia JoAnn’s first birthday party in November. They presented her with a big gift box, with a balloon inside. A note attached to the balloon read, “I’m going to be a big sister April 2019.”

“The highlight of my daughter’s 1st birthday party, was the look on her face once her biggest gift was opened,” Cole wrote on Instagram at the time, along with the hashtags “growing family” and “dad life.”

Cole won Survivor: Fiji in 2007 and married in 2010. They struggled for seven years trying to conceive, and made sure their first daughter’s name had special significance.

“Kaia means ‘ocean’ in Hawaiian,” Cole told PEOPLE in 2017, after Kaia was born. “My wife, Shelley, was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and we got married on the island of Kauai seven years ago.”

Cole continued, “Her middle name, JoAnn, is the first name of my mother who passed away last year from early Alzheimer’s — the day before we found out we were pregnant.”

Cole said he believes his mother is still living on, and feels her spirit daily. “We feel that my mother’s spirit — she was a healer and a hero — helped make it all happen,” he said.

Photo credit: Jim Spellman/WireImage/Getty Images