NHTH Luncheon!

In 2025 we are planning a 22,000 kilometre lap around Australia to raise awareness of No Harry to Hold and it’s aims and to start raising funds to help make providing mould kits to hospitals a possibility.

The hospitals we are planning to visit on the first lap are;

• Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Adelaide 
• Perth Children’s Hospital 
• Royal Darwin Hospital (Paediatrics) 
• Queensland Children’s Hospital 
• Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick
• Monash Children’s Hospital

When we were pregnant with Harry we had always planned to do the "corny" things like put his photo and his birth certificate and his hospital band in a frame with a mould of his hands and feet so we could always look back at that when he was big and causing us headaches as all kids do for their parents and remember easier times.  Obviously that didn’t become a possibility for us because Harry was never coming home with us to hold let alone to take or make mementos with.  Luckily for us I raised the subject with our Funeral Director Gayle who was taking care of Harry’s funeral for us, particularly whilst my wife was still in hospital and I was running around alone getting things done, and Gayle said she could organise it for us.  My wife got all of about 5 minutes of holding our little guy Harry before he was taken from her due to her critical condition and she never saw him again.  So you could imagine her joy when I came home a couple of months after losing him with a frame just like I described above with his little hands and feet in it.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen my wife so happy whilst completely bawling her eyes out.  We want to give more people in our situation that opportunity.

The initial aim is to try and raise enough money to provide 6 major Neonatal Intensive Care and Maternity Units in each capital city around the country with up to 500 mould kits each in the first year.  This number is based on the statistic that 3,004 babies are lost either late term or at birth every year in Australia.  The eventual aim is to provide these kits to all of these units across every state moving forward on an ongoing, per needs basis.  This is not something any State or Federal budget will ever fund so it is up to people like my wife and I to get this going.  If it works, it will bring some measure of peace to parents who find themselves in the same position that my wife and I have, not once, but twice.  To give you a ball park figure, to raise enough money to get this first round purchased and distributed we are looking at around $150,000 in total costs.