When Uralla first-time mum Amy Williams saw her baby boy for the first time she cried.
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Weighing 760 grams tiny hand-sized Hendrix was born after just 25 weeks in her womb. He was so young he didn't have taste buds, or nipples.
The 26-year-old had him in the toilet at a Newcastle hospital. It was 8.56am on December 9, 2015.
"I was terrified, if there's a word that goes above terrified that would have been it."
Nearly four years later, the mum is calling on residents of the New England to back some of the people helped her the most: Ronald McDonald House.
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Amy, who at that time lived near Bateman's Bay, needed to spend months at the hospital to be available to provide skin-to-skin contact, called "Kangaroo kisses". But she couldn't afford Newcastle rents: a nurse told her about the alternative.
"Having those people at Ronald McDonald House telling me to eat and telling me to get some sleep was like having a family," she said.
"These people didn't even know me.
"They just loved and loved and loved on everyone who came through those doors and the kept loving the whole time that we were there."
Glen Innes and Armidale's McDonalds stores are set to host McHappy Day November 16, the charity's primary fundraiser.
The day has raised more than $46 million since it was founded in 1991, with funding last year helping open new rooms at houses in Wagga Wagga, Townsville, Newcastle and Perth, as well as entirely new houses in Westmead, Perth and North Fitzroy.
They're asking for locals to form what they call a 'bucket brigade', to buy a big mac on McHappy day, or buying a range of silly socks available from October 27.
"My heart was just really sad.
"Even talking about it - you know I've been through so much and it's been five years almost and I still get all teary about it.
"I just felt angry at myself that my body couldn't give him the beginning that I wanted for him.
"When I first found out; when I saw that ultrasound for the first time I thought I'm so in love with you and I haven't even met you and I can't even see you, I can't touch you and I'm so in love with you and I want everything for you.
"And this happened; I've had to do a lot of forgiving of myself obviously.
"I had to fight through a lot of those feelings, especially in the first four months."
Returning recently to the unit she stayed at for the worst four months of her life, with now bubbly, exuberant Hendrix a few months ago was a real healing time, she said.
"They were just as loving and caring as the first time we went there."
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