Carmen Bird
For almost five years, Louise Peel lived between heartbreak and hope after losing her first baby at 24 weeks’ pregnant, enduring multiple miscarriages and learning expensive IVF was her last chance to become a mother.
This year, her baby dream came true with the arrival of now five-month-old Sienna – and Louise couldn’t be more grateful to philanthropic entrepreneurs Jaimee Lupton and Nick Mowbray for their role in it.
“Finally I’m a mum and we have our baby,” beams Louise, 40. “I feel like the luckiest person in the world.”
The journey to motherhood
Reflecting on her path to motherhood, Louise says when she met the love of her life, Wesley Haggas, on a trip home to the UK in 2017, it seemed everything was falling into place.
In 2020, they were both excited to start a family and within months of trying, Louise was pregnant.
“I had a really good start to my pregnancy,” Louise recalls. “I felt amazing, like no problems at all.”
But the 20-week scan picked up severe abnormalities affecting their baby’s brain and heart. Weeks of specialist appointments and testing followed. Louise and Wesley, 37, devastatingly learned their daughter, who they named Ruby Grace, had an underdeveloped cerebellum, three instead of four chambers in her heart, and problems with her heart valves.
“I really struggled to accept it, because she had started kicking and everything just felt great,” says Louise. “But we were being told the complete opposite.”
In March 2021, Ruby was born not breathing at 24 weeks. The pain that followed was all-consuming. “I was so stuck in my grief and so desperate to be a mum,” shares Louise.
Friendship through loss
As Ruby’s first anniversary approached, Louise saw an Instagram post from Monday Haircare founder Jaimee Lupton, sharing she had lost her daughter Gingernut at a similar gestation. As one of the few who could truly understand what Jaimee was going through, Louise felt compelled to message her.
“I just had this urge to reach out to this poor woman from someone who was a year down the line, to say, ‘Just know, you will be okay’ because at the time, you don’t think you’ll ever be okay again.”
The simple act of kindness meant so much to Jaimee and the pair struck up a friendship, often messaging to check in on each other.
At the same time, Louise was trying for a baby again after extensive genetic testing had revealed no hereditary explanation for Ruby’s condition.
An incredible gift of kindness
Quietly hopeful, Louise wasn’t prepared for the fertility struggles that followed, including three failed rounds of IUI [intrauterine insemination] treatment and two miscarriages. Eventually, specialists told them IVF, where an embryo is fertilised outside the womb then implanted, offered their strongest chance of success. Advised they would likely need multiple cycles of IVF to conceive – costing around $15,000 a cycle – Louise and Wesley were distraught.
Louise recalls questioning, “How is this my ultimatum? Knowing if we want to have a baby, we’re going to have to have IVF, but also we can’t really afford IVF.”
Then came an extraordinary act of generosity. Jaimee and her fiancé Nick offered to help Louise and Wesley pay for IVF through Gingernut’s Angels, the charity they founded in honour of the baby they lost.
“Jaimee is so kind, caring, and thoughtful,” smiles Louise. “I’d never met her in person, but we bonded over going through something really terrible together and to hear her say, ‘Nick and I want to help you. We want to fund you a round of IVF.’ We couldn’t believe what was happening.”
A miracle arrives
Even more remarkably, the first cycle worked. Sienna Grace was born in January and shares the same middle name with her big sister Ruby.
Louise says through tears, “When I saw her and she was so perfect, it was honestly the best feeling in the world. We’d done it. She’s here, she’s alive and she’s so perfect.”
The doting mum treasures every moment with her girl. One of the most special experiences was introducing Sienna to Jaimee and Nick, and their toddler Noa, who they too conceived through IVF.
“Of everybody in the world, I wanted Jaimee to have a cuddle with her more than anything,” shares Louise. “Sienna is here because of her.”
Looking to the future
One day, she hopes Sienna will have a sibling – they still have two frozen embryos – but for now, Louise is simply enjoying the life she waited so long for.
Louise reflects, “It feels so nice to be on the other side of it, to be able to breathe, be excited for the future and just be living again.”
Click here to find out more or donate to Gingernut’s Angels.
