Anxiety Disorder & My Stillborn Angel

I am now on Citalopram, the generic form of Celexa and this is helping tremendously. When I first started taking this medication I was quite tired and zombie-like. For some reason that fatigue has subsided and I can multi-task like nobody’s business. Citalopram is the second medication my doctor prescribed, Lexapro being the first. $70 a month or $9 a month, I chose 9 (citalopram).

I am relieved of such intense bouts of anxiety and panic and did not know life could be this way. I am very confident that generalized anxiety disorder or GAD is a condition I’ve had most of my life and now can experience life with a calmer nature.

September is my stillborn son’s angelversary (death date) and this will be the true test of the prescribed medication. I told my doctor that 1 month prior to Tanner’s angelversary and 1 month after I am incredibly tense and not fun to be around. So he scheduled another follow up visit for September to see how I’m doing.

I don’t know if I will be able to describe this to its fullest since these are just feelings where I have no control. There has been a pattern of high anxiety around Tanner’s death date that begins sometime around my birthday, August 23. I have a shorter fuse than usual and I do not get along with my husband and make it very clear to stay away from me.

I don’t know if its because Tanner and my husband share birthday’s or just the fact that we are approaching a bittersweet day, September 28. On the birthday cake it will always read “Happy Birthday Todd and Tanner” and sometimes it ends up being a very melancholy day with a great deal of silence.

I hope Citalopram will alleviate this anxiety and panic so I can enjoy my husband’s birthday and honor my perfect and beautiful stillborn son Tanner.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above  www.justacloudaway.com

Diana

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The Birth of My Stillborn Baby-Part 10

How could my stillborn baby be here, I didn’t push yet? I was so confused. My heart was beating in my throat and I couldn’t say anything. My mother-in-law and nurse Tara were the only ones looking at Tanner laying between my legs. My husband was standing by my side and the blanket was separating us from our son.

Nurse Tara gently picked up Tanner and swaddled him in a blankie and took him to another room to be cleaned. That was our wish. I am completely blank as to what I was thinking about when Tanner was in the other room. I am not confused as to the emotion I was feeling though….EXCITED. Even though I had been told he was dead I was very excited to see him. Tanner is our first born child and created by us.

I asked my mother in law what she saw and she said he looked like a baby and that the umbilical cord was very visible. Yes very visible because it was wrapped around his tiny neck 3 times and then around his arm/shoulder area. It was apparent what killed him.

Nurse Tara came back into the room and in her angelic voice told us what to expect. Because of the lack of oxygen for some time, his lips would be a crimson color and Tanner’s skin somewhat delicate with a tear by his nose and eye. Bruises on his body from the umbilical cord. This was all happening before the doctor arrived because Tanner came as such a surprise.

I am so thankful for nurse Tara to have taken so many pictures of us holding our sweet angel Tanner. Who would have thought it would be like this. Isn’t he just perfect. Read Tanner’s energy reading from our holistic reader. Connect with your baby too.

The Birth of My Stillborn Baby-Part 1

If you are local to the Piedmont Triad Area (Greensboro, Oak Ridge, Pleasant Garden, Burlington, Kernersville, Randleman, etc.) and would like to tell your baby’s story in an interview, please contact me-Diana(@)justacloudaway.com. The grief of loosing an infant or pregnancy is one of the most difficult life transitions to endure and sharing with the community of how to act, what to say and what to do in support of bereaved parents can and should be shared to alleviate unnecessary stress and hurt feelings. The interview will be posted on http://justacloud.wordpress.com.

A survey for ONLY those parents who have lost a pregnancy or infant, click here.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above  www.justacloudaway.com

Diana

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Angel Keepsakes for Angelversaries

This angel craft can be given as a sympathy gift on the deceased baby’s angelversary or death date. No parent will ever forget the day their child left this earth. This keepsake gift can be handcrafted by you because of it’s simplicity. Take the time to remember a child forever loved and missed with the bereaved parents on this day.

Materials you will need:

• A small glass plate
• hot glue gun
• magic marker
• tweezers
• elmers glue
• wax paper
• dried & pressed flowers & foliage
• pearl necklace or other
• decoupage
• gemstones
• engraving tool (optional)

Choose words for your plate and use marker and write. My handwriting is terrible but it is part of me, a mother of angels.

Take your engraving tool and gently trace over the letters then wipe off marker. This tool is inexpensive and can be foundat local craft stores. If you are not going to purchase this tool, simply take glue and go over the letters and sprinkle with glitter.

Now place pressed flowersand foliage around the plate the way you would like it to look. Flowers can be taken from your gardens, place between wax paper and put several books on top to flatten overnight. i have bought silicon gel to remove the water from the flowers, completing drying them. You can also do this isn a warm oven. Take the glue and adhere flowers with a small paint brush. Tweeters are very helpful to move your flowers.

Apply your angels gemstone to the center of the flowers and let dry for an hour before applying the decoupage substance. This will dry clear, so don’t worry that it is looking foggy.

Decoupage will form a protective seal for easy cleaning of your delicate flower blooms.

I chose hydrangea flowers, foliage from Russian Sage and blue gemstones for my son Tanner’s angel keepsake plate.

I have inherited many of my grandmother’s jewlery and used my hot glue gun to attach a broken strand of her pearls to the backside to hang Tanner’s plate.

These angelversary keepsakes can be hung from windows, on a wall or an angels shadowbox.

A lamp’s finial can even be the location for a deceased child’s keepsake plate.

Remember a friend’s baby on their angelversary, because parents do.

Happy Angelversary Sweet Babies

Peace Love and Hugs from Above

Diana  www.justacloudaway.com

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Do Babies Die for a Reason?

I used to think everything happened for a reason before my son was stillborn. I am guilty of uttering those insensitive words, “Everything happens for a reason”. I remember them rolling off my tongue to my uncle whose new grand baby was born with a terminal illness.

This phrase “Everything happens for a reason” is now non-existent in my book of sayings. Whoever started this was apparently without compassion. The phrase still lingers in today’s society without batting an eye. Once you are faced with a tragic death of your own child the world around you is an enemy for a time.

We are good parents, we have so much love to give and we desired to teach our children how beautiful the world is. It isn’t fair that people are having babies and ultimately neglect them. Why do they get to have perfect and healthy children and we are denied? What would be the reason for this?

My much wanted child died before he could see me with his own eyes how much I loved him. The reason he died was a cord accident and I do not think God intentionally tightened the cord to cut off his oxygen supply. This is not a perfect world and accidents and tragedies occur completely out of our control. We do not have much control anyway.

“Time will heal” is another saying people provide after the death of a baby. I don’t believe this either. I believe it is what you do with the time that mends our broken hearts. After Tanner died I drank heavily everyday for a good month. If I continued this ritual I would have self destructed and become a woman with the only indication of being alive- a heartbeat.

I like to think that because my son became an angel I have become a better person. My heart is filled with much more love of the physical and spritual kind or the visible and the unseen.

The play has been written but we can change the perception of the audience by sharing our love for our angel babies in heaven, whatever the reason was. They are our children.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above  www.justacloudaway.com

Diana

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If I Name My Deceased Baby-Will People Say It?

Did you choose a name after seeing the 2 pink lines? Did you choose a name after feeling the first kick? Did you choose a name after you found out the gender of your baby? Did you choose a name after your baby died?

My father-in-law gave me a daily devotional booklet, so I read today’s reading by Ruth Beeler Crow, “Nobody Said her Name”.

The flowers were beautiful, and the music was lovely. The minister gave a thought-provoking sermon. But at this funeral no one said my aunt’s name. As we drove to the gravestie, my cousin decided that he would say a few words after the minister read from the Bible and prayed. My cousin knew that saying his grandmother’s name was important. He told some funny stories about things she had done and said. He talked about her life and her family and how she had touched the lives of her loved ones.

Even though Tanner never met any of us “alive” ,the preachers at his Memorial Garden Dedication and Memorial Service did not hestitate to mention that “Tanner touched the lives of people across this nation. A life so brief left a definate imprint on so many of us. ” Tanner may not have physically accomplished much, but his body in my womb has.

God knows every child and God knows every detail of our lives and God knows our name. Isaiah 49:1 “Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations:Before I was born the Lord called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name.

The names of our deceased children and the memories are what we have been given. Hold on to them tightly because your children are significant and greatly loved.

Psalm 139:16   ……..your eyes saw my unformed body

What is your baby angel’s name?

Peace Love and Hugs from Above  www.justacloudaway.com

Diana

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New Relationships because of Heavenly Angels

Anita was pregnant with her second baby girl when they found out she had cancer. The symptoms of pregnancy camomflaged this horrible disease ravageing her body.

Anita was my best friend from grade school and lived nearby. We went to school together, played on the same softball team and had sleep overs on the weekends. Both of us attended different high schools and we drifted apart. Later on she married and moved away from Buffalo (our home town) and settled in another state.

I called and talked to her husband because I was planning on making a 12 hour road trip to see her. This was stomach cancer and it was moving fast. She was hospitalized because several other organs had to be removed.

 I could only make the road trip in 2 months and I remember someone telling me that it might be too late. I called her on the phone and this voice was incredibly frail and soft. Was this my girlfriend? I could not believe my ears. I am so glad I had the opportunity to talk to her because she died shortly after. Her daughter was born healthy at approximately 7 months gestation, before Anita passed.

I took it extremely hard because she was my friend, young in age and had her whole life ahead of her with her husband and had 2 precious girls. The youngest daughter would never know her.

I loved her parents and reached out to them after Anita had died. I felt to bad for them. Anita was their eldest child of 3.

A couple of years after Anita died my son also died. Tanner was our first born and died of a cord accident in the womb. He was stillborn and our little angel. I immediately thought of Anita holding my baby in her loving arms as she rocked him to sleep in a beautiful garden in heaven. This vision gave me some comfort which I shared with Anita’s parents, along with a picture of Tanner. They were touched.

I know that heaven is full of  wonderful family members, but having a good friend who was expecting another child cradling my baby was so comforting to me. She knows how to take care of babies and I told Anita’s parents that I am giving Tanner to her until I get there. I know she will love him with all of her heart.

Anita’s birthday is July 9th and I will always have that special day on my calendar. She will be 39 in heaven.

Happy Birthday Anita! I love you Neetz.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above

Diana

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