Zuru power couple Jaimee Lupton and Nick Mowbray plan to open a not-for-profit IVF clinic to help couples desperate for a baby but unable to afford the hefty price tag that comes with treatment.
The move comes after a $1 million donation made this year by Mowbray and his brother Mat, father to four children with his wife Christina Tang, to Gingernut’s Angels, a foundation Lupton launched last year to help fund couples unable to afford fertility treatment.
Lupton has faced her own fertility struggles, including miscarriages, failed IVF cycles and losing a baby, stillborn at 24 weeks, in March 2022.
The couple had nicknamed their unborn daughter Gingernut, a reference to Mowbray’s red hair and because Lupton ate gingernut biscuits during her pregnancy. More fertility treatment followed and, two years after their loss, Lupton gave birth to daughter Noa, now 19 months.
Last year, 72 grants of up to $10,000 were awarded after the Mowbrays donated $500,000 and an additional $182,000 was raised from donations. To date, at least 10 “Gingernut’s Angels” babies have been born from IVF treatment with help from the fund, and more than 20 women are pregnant at the moment. Other recipients have yet to undergo embryo transfers.
This year, 125 grants were awarded from the $1.128m fund, boosted by the Mowbrays’ $1m donation. Pregnancies from this year’s funding round have yet to be established.
Lupton says she will continue indefinitely with Gingernut’s Angels, or at least until 1000 babies are born. She knows the joy of becoming a mother after years of heartbreak.
During the Herald on Sunday’s interview with Lupton, she rarely takes her eyes off Noa, who runs about her Coatesville home, swinging her arms, posing for photos and investigating the contents of the photographer’s gear bag.
Lupton knows her fertility struggle to provide a brother or sister for Noa won’t be an easy one, and says she’s acutely aware of the costs involved – between $15,000 and $23,000 depending on treatment.
“I just remember when we were trying over a five-year period, every time a bill came in it was just absurd.”
She’s aware how lucky she is not to have to worry about money. For her, she says, the question is “what’s next, what’s the plan?” not “can we afford it?”
As a result, she and Mowbray want to open their own not-for-profit IVF clinic, starting with one in Auckland, to provide a more affordable option.
“Our big goal is to start an IVF clinic ourselves and that is definitely under way, with many discussions between me and him [Nick] about it.”
The couple have already started talking about who they would want on their IVF team. As well as financial support, those going through fertility struggles need emotional support, Lupton says, describing the IVF process as “extremely gruelling”.
“It’s all you can think about. You wake up thinking about it, you go to bed thinking about it.
“It’s extremely isolating. So many people are going through it and I think unless you’ve gone through it yourself, you don’t really truly understand the toll emotionally on your relationships with your family, with yourself.”
Lupton works with three New Zealand fertility clinics, Fertility Associates, Repromed and the government-funded Te Whatu Ora provider Fertility Plus. The three clinics support Gingernut’s Angels recipients by giving a 20% discount for treatment and drugs.
That discount and a grant of up to $10,000 for each applicant means most IVF rounds, including egg freezing, are within reach of Kiwis wanting to start a family but unable to afford the full cost.
Te Whatu Ora’s Fertility Plus is the only fertility clinic in New Zealand providing a mix of publicly and privately funded IVF treatment. Of about 500 IVF procedures it carries out each year, 75% are publicly funded and 25% are private.
Those on the public waiting list need to meet certain criteria, which include an age and BMI (body mass index) limit. Fertility Plus’ service clinical director Dr Cindy Farquhar says those seeking a publicly funded consultation need a referral from a GP. Couples with unexplained infertility need to have been trying to conceive for five years; those with a known cause of infertility can be referred after a year.
Publicly funded patients can wait up to four months for their first specialist assessment by the clinic after being referred. They are limited to two rounds of IVF.
People applying for Gingernut’s Angels grants to help fund IVF do not face similar restrictions. Lupton says she and Mowbray want to do as much as they can to make fertility treatment more accessible and affordable for Kiwis.
In the meantime, Lupton is focused on Gingernut’s Angels. She doesn’t know who has received a grant – a decision made by the foundation’s “Guardian Angels” panel, which includes Repromed’s medical director Dr Devashana Gupta, and former chairwoman and group medical director of Fertility Associates, Dr Mary Birdsall.
But she’s regularly approached by grateful members of the public thanking her for giving them a chance to have a baby. And she keeps in touch with many of the mums who shared their pregnancy news with her.
“There is not a team behind this charity,” Lupton says. “It’s me replying and getting live updates on the babies.”
Lupton says she cried when she heard the first baby, Billie, was born in June to Hawke’s Bay couple Brittany and Mathew Meyer as a result of IVF funded by the foundation.
Fertility complications meant IVF was the couple’s only option. They managed to fund one round in early 2023, which resulted in Brittany falling pregnant with a baby boy.
But tragedy struck when, as a result of her undiagnosed pre-eclampsia condition, baby Baxter was stillborn at full term. The couple had one embryo left but Brittany miscarried in March last year, destroying her chances of becoming a mum.
However, after successfully applying for a Gingernut’s Angels grant, the Meyers went through another round of IVF. Billie, whose middle name is Baxter in memory of her late brother, was born in June this year by caesarean at 35 weeks after Brittany developed pre-eclampsia again. It was a tense moment, waiting for Billie to take her first breath and cry.
“With Baxter of course we didn’t hear any crying,” Brittany says. “And finally we heard that cry. As soon as you hear it, it’s amazing.”
Billie spent the first week of her life in Hawke’s Bay Hospital’s special care baby unit.
“She didn’t seem real because she wasn’t in our room.”
Brittany says she and her husband will always be grateful to Gingernut’s Angels.
“Every single day, we remind ourselves how truly lucky we are to have our little girl, Billie. Watching Billie grow into such a bright, chatty little 4-month-old has been the most beautiful journey. She’s full of smiles, laughter, and already showing her own little spark of sass. Our hearts are so full.”
Brittany stays in regular contact with Lupton, as does Aucklander Louise Peel, who played a part in the idea behind Gingernut’s Angels. Peel’s baby Ruby was stillborn at 24 weeks in 2021 after a few years of fertility issues, including miscarriages. When Lupton posted on social media she had lost Gingernut, Peel says she instantly recognised the raw grief Lupton was feeling.
The two women formed a bond, leading Lupton to offer to fund a round of IVF, which Peel and her fiance Wesley Haggas could not afford. Peel’s health complications delayed her fertility treatment but she is now due to give birth to a baby girl in early January.
“We are so incredibly excited and grateful to be pregnant, and to have made it this far,” Peel told the Herald on Sunday.
“It’s taken a long time for it to truly sink in, even now, I still have to pinch myself that it’s really happening. After so many years of heartbreak and loss, there were moments we thought it might never happen for us, and that was an absolutely devastating feeling.
“I can’t wait to finally become a mum and hold our little girl in my arms. She is already so loved.”
Peel says she and her husband would be forever grateful to Gingernut’s Angels.
“Without them, this may never have been possible and that thought breaks my heart. We feel so incredibly lucky, even in an unlucky situation.”
It was Peel’s fertility struggles and the offer to fund an IVF round that led to Lupton and Mowbray to think they could do more to help those without the financial means to combat infertility.
Lupton says she and Mowbray are constantly asked to support various charities or donate to causes.
“It is very different truly creating something that you believe in and that, as a direct result of it, is human life. It’s the best.”
Jane Phare is the New Zealand Herald’s deputy print editor.
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