That drive led her to create the Emerikus Land Foundation, with the aim of putting special units allowing mothers to spend more time with their stillborn children into hospitals aorund the country.

The fruits of her mission to honour Emerikus’ legacy arrived at Wagga Base Hospital on Thursday with the donation of a Cuddle Cot to the maternity ward.

“She was never alive but she was never going to be another little lost baby,” Ms Land said.

“We always said from day dot we were going to do something in memory of her.”

Cuddle Cots, which Ms Land is donating to hospitals around the country through the Emerikus Land Foundation, allow stillborn babies to stay in the room with their mothers and families until they are ready to say goodbye by cooling the body.

Ordinarily, mothers only have a matter of hours with their stillborn babies to say goodbye.

Ms Land only had five hours to spend with Emerikus before she had to say her farewells.

“We didn’t have a lot of time with Emerikus – our time was very short,” Ms Land said.

“We wanted to give families more time to say goodbye to their baby without having the interruption of going to the cooling room to be cooled.”

Ms Land’s foundation is working to raise funds to put Cuddle Cots in as many hospitals as they can around the country. But that mission hasn’t been easy, she admits.

“We flip a lot of burgers, we do a lot of sausage sizzles,” she said.

Wagga Base Hospital acting midwifery unit manager Sandra Forde said the Cuddle Cot would be a major addition for the unit.

“It will enable women who have had a pregnancy loss to be able to spend time with the baby and say their goodbyes at their leisure,” she said.

“It’s very important for their grieving process and we don’t want women to feel rushed.”

Ms Forde said any woman who experiences a pregnancy loss will be able to access the unit.