BATON ROUGE — October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, a time dedicated to honoring grieving families and bringing attention to a painful reality: roughly 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, and about 21,000 U.S. babies are stillborn each year.

For Ranim Haddad, that grief was a recurring part of her life for more than a decade. Over 11 years, Haddad endured 20 miscarriages, a baby who died just hours after birth, and a stillbirth at 18 weeks shortly after a gender reveal party. To this day, doctors have found no clear medical cause for her recurrent losses.

"God was just with us in this whole process, especially this last pregnancy," Haddad said.

Last week, Haddad celebrated a miracle: her son, Emmanuel—meaning "God with us"—turned 1 year old. He is her only living child.

"I didn't kind of take a deep breath until Emmanuel was in my arms, to be honest with you," Haddad admitted.

Her physician, Dr. Susan Gerber, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Medicine who began caring for Haddad in 2024, called the sheer number of losses Haddad suffered "extremely unusual." While it remains unclear why her pregnancy with Emmanuel was successful when so many others were not, Gerber notes that each patient must navigate their own journey and decide what is best for them.

"We still don't have an underlying cause," Gerber said.

Now, as her rainbow baby reaches a major milestone, Haddad hopes her story offers comfort to others walking through similar heartache.

"Don't give up, especially if they can't find the problem," Haddad urged.