Today, Friday 7 April 2006 is the date Michelle and I were given as our baby's due date. Today is the day that Bailey should have been born and made his entry into the world. It didn't happen that way and Bailey was born back on New Year's Eve. To mark the day we took a helium filled balloon up to his grave and released it into the air. Attached to the balloon, protected from the weather, was a photograph of the little man and an explanatory note of who Bailey was and why the balloon had been let loose.

It was pretty windy at the cemetery, which is fairly exposed and sits above the coastline, and the sky was heavy with cloud. At first the balloon looked like it might snag on the boundary hedge or even on one of the houses in the estate which surrounds the cemetery, but after a little dip the wind caught the balloon and it soared. Within seconds the balloon had cleared the cemetery and very quickly after that it would have passed over the coastline and out over the Irish Sea towards Scotland.

Michelle, Courtney and I stood and watched as the balloon went on it's way and rapidly grew smaller and smaller in our vision. Eventually it passed out of our sight and was lost to us.

Today is a day which for us is filled with all the usual questions of 'what if?' and 'why?', but it has also been a day when we could do something to feel close to our boy again. It's been a reminder, if any was needed, just how raw we are after the death of our son. We had thought that by now we would have been buying nappies and sterilising bottles rather than putting flowers on our son's grave which has already lost the bloom of newness that it once had.

One day we might see a note from the person who finds Bailey's balloon in the guestbook on this site. We will have to wait and see.