Our first daughter Abigail was born on May 22nd 2006 a seemingly healthy 9lb 14oz baby. The first 6 weeks of her life were just as you expect really when you are new parents, plenty of sleepness nights and dirty nappies, but neither of us were complaining and we both seemed to take to parenthood really well.

Then at 6 weeks old our Health Visitor came to see her for a routine check up and when she weighed her she was a little concered about Abi's slow weight gain and also the fact that her muscle tone was not quite what it should be. Being the protective dad that I am, I got quite angry as I felt the Health Visitor was over reacting and when she came round a few days later I told her as much. So when she suggested we go to the Hospital to see a Paediatrician I thought it would be an opportunity for us to get the all clear and try to get on and live an ordinary life.

However, as soon as the doctor checked Abigail over we both knew that something was not quite right. Sometimes you just know from the look on someones face that there is a problem. The doctors said they wanted to do some blood tests and keep Abi in overnight for observation. We asked the doctors what they thought was wrong but at this stage they didn't want to commit themselves to anything. Rachel asked if what they thought Abi had was life threatening, but they just said it was "life changing", which really just added to the confusion.

We both stayed with Abi that first night in hospital and I really don't think I have had a worse nights sleep ever. We both just laid there not knowing what to think, whether to be positive or to think the worst, our heads were just a total mess.

We had some better news the following day though, the doctor's were happy with how Abi was and told us we were allowed to go home, although we wouldn't receive the blood results for a week.

I know it sounds cliched but that week seemed to last forever. If you think of every emotion you have ever had and put them all together and shook them up that is how we both felt. One minute we would convince ourselves everything would be alright, the next minute the realisation would kick in that something was wrong. I think I speak for both of us when I say this really was the hardest week of our lives.

Yet through it all Abi continued to be the smiley, happy baby that she was, nothing seemed to upset her and as long as she had her dummy she was happy.

Then the day came that we had to go back to hospital to get Abi's results. To be honest I can't remember much about the day up until when we went to hospital. Then we went into a room with 2 doctor's and a nurse, by this stage we were beginning to get scared as the mood of the 3 of them was very sombre.

What happened next will stay with us forever. The doctor looked at us and told us that Abi had Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). To be honest this meant absolutely nothing to us and neither of us had heard of it. We both sat there waiting for the other one to speak. Finally I plucked up the courage to ask the question we were both so scared of hearing the answer to, I said "Is it life threatening?". Ten seconds later our lives had collapsed, the doctor had just answered us with "Babies with SMA Type 1 don't usually live past their 2nd Birthday".

It is hard to explain what happened at that point, I literally just broke down in tears and didn't know what to think. Then in the next breath the doctor told us that as SMA is a Genetic condition if Rachel was to get pregnant again there was a 1 in 4 chance of the baby having SMA. I just remember thinking that I would never get the chance to be a Daddy.

The next 2 weeks were unbearable, the more we found out about SMA the worse the situation seemed to get. It became clear that most babies with SMA Type 1 didn't actually make their 1st Birthday, and the level of care they needed was immense but we both knew that we would do absolutely anything to make Abi's life easier.

I also remember that around this time I used to get very angry especially if I had had a beer. I just wanted to break things or punch walls and doors. For anyone who really knows me they will know how out of character this is.

One really positive thing to come out of this period was that our mates really rallied round us and I remember one day in particular about 4 days after we found out about Abi's illness we went the Lincoln Water Festival with all our friends. Rach and Abi left about 6 o'clock and me and my mates went off to the pub. I had had quite a bit to drink and when I got talking to my friends about Abi I just broke down in tears, none of them felt uncomfortable about this and I think some of them were crying with me. I just remember thinking "we are not on our own". So can I just take this opportunity to thank each and everyone of our friends for all the support you gave to us.

After the initial shock and heartache of finding out about Abi, Rachel and I made the decision that we were going to make Abi's life as special as we possibly could. We realised that if we sat at home feeling sorry for ourselves, and feeling nothing but self pity her life would just pass us by and we would miss out on her. That's not to say we didn't have low moments and cry, of course we did, but if we ever did this in front of Abi she had this knack of looking at us with her big eyes and smiling as if to say "what's up with you two, I'm not going anywhere yet".

We decided to get Abi Christened which was such a happy day for us. Bert was one of her God Parents along with Rachel's sister Sarah and her boyfriend Ryan. Due to the circumstances we didn't want a big fuss, so after the ceremony we just went for a meal with our parents, Abi's God Parents, my brother and his girlfriend.

Shortly after Abi's Christening we went for a short break to a log cabin near York. It was so good for me and Rach to just get away from everything where no one knew us and we could just be a normal family for a week. The holiday was helped by the fact that we had a private hot tub that I spent most of the time sitting in.

The following few weeks went smoothly and Abi seemed to be doing really well, all the Health Visitors and Nurses were really happy with her. Then at the start of October her feeding started to deteriorate so she had to have a feeding tube fitted. At first this was really daunting for Rach and I but it really is amazing that when it's your own baby you will do anything to help them, and feeding Abi through a tube just became second nature to us.

A week after Abi's feeding tube was fitted she caught a chest infection and had to spend a week in hospital, although hospitals are not the nicest places in the world, we both have fond memories of the times we spent there and we made some great friends and Abi seemed comfortable and settled there.

One of my best memories of Abi's life was when she was in hospital and I used to arrive in the morning (Rachel spent the nights in hospital with Abi), as I walked through the door into her room Abi's eyes would move across to see me and the biggest smile you can imagine would come onto her face as if to say "Hi Daddy". It really did make me feel on top of the world.

Unfortunately after Abi's week in hospital needed to have oxygen to help her breathe which was again a very hard thing to get to grips with, but just like the feeding tube after a while it also became second nature.

It was shortly after this that I decided to give up work, I had been working part time since September and my work (Waitrose) had been very understanding and had told me that whatever I wanted to do they would try to help me.

The reason that I eventually decided that I could no longer cope with work was when a customer enquired to me about a certain type of Whisky that we didn't sell, when I told her we didn't sell it, she turned to me and said "how life is so terrible sometimes" and started telling me about all her "problems". I found it so hard not to tell this woman to piss off and say that a poxy bottle of whisky is nothing to complain about. This is when I knew that it was time to take some time off.. On top of this I knew that Rachel needed me at home and I obviously wanted to spend as much time with Abi as I could.

I think I also knew deep down that we didn't have much time left with Abi and for that reason I asked my mum to ring my older brother in Germany to see if he could come over and visit us as he was the only one of my 3 brothers that hadn't seen Abi.

He came over on Novermber 3rd and when he first met her they couldn't take their eyes of each other, she looked totally besotted with him and he just held her hand for about an hour.

We spent the rest of the weekend at my mum and dad's house and had a really good time, Abi seemed really happy and everything seemed fine.

However, on the night of Monday 6th November, Abi had a really restless night and whatever we tried to do she just wouldn't settle, it was so unlike her and for that reason we decided to take her to hospital at about 6am on Tuesday 7th November. When we took her in the doctors told us they thought that she just had a tummy bug, but as the day progressed it became clear that it was a lot more serious than this. The level of oxygen she was on had been increasing all day and by about 8pm I realised that we really didn't have long left with her. I spoke to one of the doctors about it and although she couldn't say what I was thinking I knew she was thinking the same thing. Rachel was asleep at the time and I remember just holding Abi's hand and talking to her, telling her how much I loved her.

The next morning when we woke up, Abi's oxygen had been turned right up and she was really struggling. We made the decision to phone our mums and dads, Rachel's sister and boyfriend, my brother and of course Bert, to ask them to come to the hospital. We felt that because they had shared in Abi's life we wanted them to see her one last time.

As it happened the doctor who had first told us about Abi's illness was on duty that day and took me and Rach into a room to tell us that he thought Abi would pass away in the next 24 hours.

As we walked back into the room the nurse asked Bert (who was holding her at the time) to give Abi to me and Rach and within a couple of minutes she had passed away in our arms. It sounds weird to say but there was no panic at all and there was also a strange sense of relief. I hated seeing my little girl suffer and although I would have done anything to help her we knew that there wasn't anything we could have done.

One of the hardest things was going back home knowing that Abi wasn't there, the house felt so empty, just the same as we were.

Abi's funeral was held 2 weeks later on the 21st November. There were hundreds of people in attendance and that meant so much to us. The vicar who did the service (he also Christened Abi and Married me and Rach) came out to meet us and said that the church was packed and that the people were there for us. The day passed us by really and although we had a buffet at a pub near the church, neither of us really wanted to be there.

So that is why we are doing this walk, to help raise money and awareness for The Jennifer Trust, but most of all to keep Abigail's memory alive.

This one's for you Sweetheart x x x