Trying to stop negative thoughts

I'm not a negative person, I always try to find the positive in everything. Even with the death of Jamie, I have been able to focus on all the positives and that has been what has helped me keep going, to get up in the morning, to not crumble in a screaming wreck.

But I've been thinking about some of the things I wish I'd done with Jamie. Jamie's 3 days were not normal - I didn't get to hold him, I couldn't feed him, I didn't change his nappy because he didn't do any poos and he had a catheter for his wee - but I accept that this was normal for a poorly baby but I wish I had asked to hold him before he had his stomach surgery on the day he was born. I was in shock after giving birth and going to theatre to have my placenta removed, I was in shock that Jamie was being operated on so soon and I was trying to keep detached from my baby because he had been taken away from me seconds after he was born and if I really thought about that I would have lost the plot and it would have been too much for me to cope with. And I didn't know realise that after his stomach surgery, he was going to attached to so many tubes making it impossible to pick him up. And I don't know what his bum looked like. That sounds really stupid but I love baby's bums and I don't even have a picture of Jamie's back or bum.

And I wish we had taken some pictures of Jamie after he had died as well. We have a couple of pictures, which Kaye from the PICU took after she had washed and dressed him the night he died. But I do wish we had some pictures of us holding him after he had died, but at the time it wasn't really appropriate because it was too emotional and we were too devastated by what we had lost. I also think having a picture of Jamie in his coffin may have helped me but we didn't even think about taking the camera to the funeral directors. I think all of this is because we have so few memories of Jamie, I'm scared of forgetting any of them, even the ones after his death.

I've been reading stories written by parents who have had a stillbirth or a death shortly after birth and they have been able to wash and dress their baby, to take lots of pictures. After Jamie died Kaye asked us whether we wanted to bath and dress Jamie but because of all the tubes and the heart surgery I couldn't face it, I didn't want to see Jamie with so much trauma, I didn't want to see what his little body had been through that day. I don't regret not seeing Jamie's body after surgery but I'm sad that I wasn't in a position to see my baby's body again. He was very wrapped up everytime we saw him after he had died, so we could just see his beautiful face and head. Seeing and holding Jamie after he had died was still very important and we will always have those special memories.