Melanie is a mother of 4 beautiful boys, one who is an Angel. Her son
Harrison Alexandar McKenzie was born on the 14th of September 2010 and passed away on the 15th of September 2010. In Harrisons memory she started
Harrisons Little Wings.
Harrison lived for only a short 28 hours due to an incurable condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. His 28 hours of life was 28 hours of pure fight and courage from him. Melanie watched her baby boy fight so hard, struggle to live, and then watched as he lost that battle.
Instead of taking Harrison home from the hospital, she took a box of memories that the Mater Mothers Hospital in Queensland had kindly made up. This contained Harrisons monitor wiring, foot prints, sunnies and ear muffs, amongst other treasured items.
As an avid scrapbooker, Melanie found scrapbooking Harrisons photos a form of therapy, and a wonderful way to preserve their very special photos and memories of their time together. Harrisons Little Wings is a registered non profit charity that create special photo frames and 6 x 6 scrapbook albums for families that suffer the loss of their baby through perinatal death. They currently service the Mater Mothers Brisbane, Logan, Redcliffe and Caboolture Hospitals in Queensland and hope to service all hospitals across Australia in the future.
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| Harrisons 'Gift Of Hope Journal' |
I first met Mel online around April last year. We have formed a wonderful friendship, even though we have never met in person. We talk on the phone a lot, we have cried together and laughed too. Mel is an amazing woman and I'm very lucky to call her a friend. Mel has similar values and beliefs to me. We know that together we are going to make a difference to newly bereaved families journey and help them capture their precious memories. Melanie is strongly advocating to change and educate the support midwives provide following the loss of a child in Queensland Hospitals. I admire her courage and strength, through what has been a very difficult time for her family.
On Yasminah's second birthday, Mel made the most gorgeous scrapbook for me to put Yasminah's photos and keepsakes into. It is something I treasure. I placed all her special photos and memento's into the album from the original purple book the hospital placed Yasminah's things into.
I will share the layouts inside Yasminah's Scrapbook another time. Later this month Yasminah would of turned 3 and to mark her birthday I'm giving back where I can and sharing other organisations that have helped me, in her memory. I have been fortunate enough to have a little bit of spare time to create a few layouts for Harrisons Little Wings. Mel doesn't know about these yet and I have a few more that I am working on. I have to say that it is quite a challenge to create 6 x 6 layouts without having a photo to work around, also doing a similar style. Decorating a journal is challenging but I take my hat off to Mel and her volunteers for the beauty in each of their pages.
If you can scrap and would like to help Mel with Harrisons Little Wings contact her via
email 
