After 20 miscarriages, mom celebrates her son’s first birthday: “I couldn’t give up” (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Ranim Haddad suffered unexplained pregnancy losses for a decade as doctors searched for answers.

• She and her husband Fuad welcomed Emmanuel in October 2025 after close monitoring throughout her pregnancy.

• As Emmanuel approaches his first year, Ranim hopes his story will encourage others facing infertility and loss.

Just seven months after their wedding, Ranim and Fuad Haddad were thrilled to learn they were expecting a baby in February 2015.

The Chicago-area couple — she is now 36 and a stay-at-home mom, and he is 40 and owns a private transportation service — were excited about their future.

But something went wrong during the pregnancy and Ranim learned that she was having a miscarriage. Even though it was the first time she heard those words, it wouldn’t be the last.

Over the next ten years, Ranim had at least 20 miscarriages, she says.

Time and time again, Ranim and Fuad mourned their lost babies. Time and time again, they searched for answers. But doctors couldn’t explain why her pregnancies weren’t viable.

“Our biggest problem was they couldn’t find the problem,” says Ranim, now 36 and living in Alsip, Illinois, about 20 miles from Chicago. “If they had told me, ‘Okay, this is why you can’t keep babies,’ then I would have made peace with it. But they kept saying, ‘We don’t know. If you keep trying, it might happen.’ So I couldn’t give up when I had the chance.”

In 2018, her doctor recommended the couple undergo IVF. They created about eight healthy embryos and the genetic testing looked good. But after the first transfer, she miscarried at 9 weeks. Then the second transfer failed.

“At that point, I was done,” she recalls. “I told my husband, ‘I need a long break. I can’t keep doing this.’ “

In March 2020, they sent their remaining embryos to long-term storage.

Two months later, they were shocked to learn that Ranim was pregnant naturally. For the first time, they heard their baby’s heartbeat and saw the baby on the ultrasound; previous miscarriages had occurred too early for imaging.

“It was so exciting,” she says. “It was like a miracle after all these years of trying and trying to finally see this little thing on screen.”

The couple had a gender reveal party when Ranim was 18.5 weeks pregnant. About 100 guests learned that Ranim and Fuad were expecting a baby girl. They called it Miracle.

A day later, she felt a gush of fluid – it was her water breaking. Alarmed, she rushed to the hospital, only to be told she could go home as everything seemed fine.

The next day she was going to the bathroom and the umbilical cord came out. She and her husband called 911. In the emergency room, the obstetrician-gynecologist on call said their daughter would not survive. There was no way to save her.

Before Ranim realized what was happening, she was in active labor – all while being told she had to plan her daughter’s funeral. When Miracle was born on August 12, 2020, her heart stopped beating. She weighed less than a pound. Ranim remembers her being perfectly shaped, with the tiniest eyelashes, eyebrows and nails.

This was followed by another miscarriage.

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“My regular obstetrician told me, ‘I can’t help you anymore,’” Ranim recalls. She was referred to maternal-fetal medicine specialist Dr. Susan Gerber of Northwestern Medicine.

Ranim underwent many of the same tests ordered by her obstetrician, and Gerber saw nothing different. “Dr. Gerber told me, ‘I can help you get pregnant, but you have to be prepared for whatever happens, because we can’t find anything wrong,'” Ranim recalls. “She said, ‘When you get pregnant, all we can do is watch you very, very closely.'”

In 2021, Ranim became pregnant again, this time with a baby boy. She went to see Gerber immediately. “She starts watching me, everything seems fine at first,” Ranim says.

Unfortunately, around 14 weeks, she learned that the little boy suffered from a very rare condition called sirenomelia. He had no kidneys, so he didn’t produce amniotic fluid. This meant his lungs could not develop.

“I asked, ‘Is there any chance this baby will survive being born?’ Dr. Gerber said, “No, it’s very, very unlikely that this baby will survive, even if you carry him to term,” Ranim recalled.

The couple had the choice to terminate the pregnancy, but they decided against it.

“We have a lot of confidence,” Ranim says. “I remember thinking, ‘I can’t end this pregnancy or end this baby’s life. » “

The doctor warned that Ranim might go into early labor. “I prayed about it and said, ‘If God wants to give us this baby, maybe it will be a miracle after everything we’ve been through,'” she said. “I want to do everything I can to try to save this baby.”

She went into labor around 29 weeks. Samuel was born on February 2, 2024 and weighs approximately 3 and a half pounds.

“They had a whole team of specialists ready to go, even though they already knew the baby wouldn’t survive,” says Ranim.

After Samuel was born, he was placed on his mother’s womb. “I heard my husband say, ‘Let him go.’ Let them try. » “

She saw a team of specialists trying to save her son.

“They tried everything,” she said. “Then the doctor came to us and she said, ‘There’s nothing else we can do. Would you like to hold him until the heart stops?’ “

She was holding her son, whose heartbeat was very soft and slow until it stopped a few hours later. The couple took photos with Samuel. “Then we had to plan another funeral,” she says.

They buried him next to his sister Miracle.

“When I went to the funeral home, it was a flashback,” Ranim said. “I lost it at the funeral home and the cemetery. Again.”

But with still no answers and no reason why her babies weren’t surviving, she was more determined than ever to keep trying. “I said, ‘I’m not giving up. I can’t give up. “

After burying two babies in identical coffins, they needed a fresh start, she said.

She and Fuad moved out of their house and into a smaller apartment. They sold the gas station her husband owned with his father and they both found new jobs. Ranim got a part-time job with fewer hours and responsibilities so he could focus on his doctor’s appointments. Her husband opened a transportation business for schoolchildren.

Ranim became pregnant again – “it was never a problem for us” – in February 2025 and immediately went to see Gerber.

She started with ultrasounds and blood tests. “Every appointment, she would come out and say, ‘Ranim, everything is perfectly fine. Everything looks perfect.’ At first, I don’t have much hope, because I’m like, “I’ve been through this before.” Everything is perfect, then something happens. One day my husband looks at me and he says, “You’re not getting excited. I said, “Because the more excited I am, the bigger the disappointment will be if something happens.” » “

Because of his history, Ranim had appointments with Gerber every week. Everything continued to look good.

Towards the end of the pregnancy, Gerber placed a cerclage to close Ranim’s cervix to prevent premature delivery. She developed gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia with high blood pressure. At 35 weeks, she was admitted to the hospital and induced at 37 weeks.

This time, the baby survived.

Emmanuel was born weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces on October 1, 2025.

“I was scared because he didn’t cry for the first 15 seconds,” Ranim said. “My husband started recording right when he was crying. When I watch the video, all I hear is, ‘Oh, thank God, thank God.’ “

The nurses told her the baby was perfect and she was able to hold him right away.

“It was the best feeling in the world,” Ranim says, “to finally be able to hold a living, crying baby. I was so happy it was like a dream.”

For the first 11 months, Emmanuel barely slept, Ranim said, adding that he woke up every half hour. “But honestly, I loved every moment of it,” Ranim says. “I’m so grateful. When he wakes up in the morning and sees me, he starts to smile.”

Doctors still don’t understand why she lost so many babies.

“Ranim’s case is very unusual: She suffered more loss than I have ever seen a patient and then had a healthy, full-term baby,” says Gerber.

That’s why she supports Ranim’s desire to try again.

“She carried a baby to term, so we know her body can do it,” says Dr. Gerber. “There is reason to hope that she can do it again.”

Ranim remembers blaming herself for loss after loss. She remembers feeling overwhelmed and alone as her friends celebrated their successful pregnancies.

But now she’s ready to share her story.

As Emmanuel’s first birthday approaches, she reminds others not to lose hope.

“I just want to say to all women: never give up.”

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