January 24, 2008 - Diana Gardner-Williams: Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away
Hosts:  Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley
With guest:  Diana Gardner-Williams
January 24, 2008
G: Hello, I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: Each week, Heidi and I welcome you to Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and conversation with those who’ve suffered the loss of a loved one and for healthcare professionals who work in this most difficult field.  As always the message is others have been there before you and made it, you can, too.  You need not walk alone.  If you’re listening to our Thursday live Internet show, please join Heidi and me and our guest on the show by calling our toll-free number, 1-866-472-5792, with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.  These shows are archived on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com, as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org websites.  All shows can be downloaded on iTunes and the transcripts can be accessed on www.thegriefblog.com.  Well, Heidi, good morning.
H: Morning, Mom.
G: We have a wonderful guest today, Diana Gardner-Williams, and we’ll be introducing her in a few minutes.  She has a wonderful website and we’re going to be speaking today about “Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away.”  Well, before we talk to Diana, I wanted to talk about some of the information that’s on the blog.  I hope you’ll go there and look at the fact that Camp Erin is going to be happening in the Bay Area.  Camp Erin is a sponsored camp by Kara, an organization in the Bay Area, and it’s a weekend camp for ages 6 to 17 for children who are grieving the loss of a child so it’s going to be a wonderful camp and you can go onto our site and look at it.  And these camps are also sponsored camps.  There are actually camps all over the United States and if you’ll go check out Camp Erin, you’ll be able to read about the other camps.
H: Oh, very good.  I didn’t know there were the other camps on there.  I was going to bring that up also because there are camps like that here in Manhattan as well.  And there’s 9/11 camps and then there’s camps for different kinds of losses for children and the kids that I know that have gone to the camps absolutely love them.
G: Well, this one is sponsored by the Moyer Foundation and you can go on the Moyer Foundation site also because they have I think about 100 camps around the United States.  But if you want to do it for your children, you need to get on it right away because they’re taking the applications right now for this summer.  Well, Heidi, I also wanted to talk about I’ve had a couple of people recently who have emailed us about the loss of an adult child and particularly one recently.  Her son was 55 years old and she’s really suffering.  I would assume if he’s 55 she’s probably 75 maybe.
H: Right, at the youngest.
G: Yeah, at the youngest and the fact is that people don’t get a lot of recognition for losing a child that age when they’re in their 70s.  People are thinking oh, well, they’re older, but it hurts just as much.
H: Absolutely because the reality is that parents are not supposed to outlive their children and so even if your child is in their 50s, you’ve lost your child and that’s someone that you always thought would be in your life until you died.
G: And a lot of times like with the firemen families, 9/11, those men were very involved with their families and helping support some of them.
H: Absolutely.  Adult children are often very connected to their families, very involved and what ends up happening is, Mom, oftentimes if an adult child gets married and then they die, the focus is on the widows and that adult child’s children.  And sometimes we forget about the parents and the siblings are unacknowledged.
G: And we see that, too, with people who are killed in the Army, service, those kinds of things.  Sometimes the families don’t have any say over anything, the funeral, the body or whatever.  And that brings me up to a loss that’s happened recently with Heath Ledger.
H: Yes, it just happened a couple of days ago and as you all know, I was here in Manhattan and it’s been a big thing on the media, on CNN, on Larry King and he died in Soho in his sleep.  They’re not sure what happened.  They’re looking at the idea of taking a little too many sleeping pills.  It was an accidental sudden death at this point and he was only 28 years old.  And when we hear things like this, it brings up not only the loss of someone that did so many amazing films and made his mark in the world but it also brings up our own losses.  We revisit our own losses when we see the memorials and the tributes to somebody in the media and we think about our own losses and also I think our hearts go out to the family because we’ve been there.  And we know the pain and suffering that they’re probably going through right now.
G: Absolutely.  I always think about it as how many hearts out there are broken for these kind of events, how many people – I mean if you could take that whole energy and bring it together, it would be an amazing thing.  Empathy and compassion for people.
H: Absolutely, and I saw, they’ve been focusing a lot on Heath’s two-year-old daughter but on CNN, I think it was last night or the night before, I saw his parents and his sister come out and make a statement to the media.  And I felt so strongly for them and you could see the physical toll it was taking on his mother.  But the whole family looked really distraught and I just really felt for them.
G: Absolutely.  Well, Heidi, we’ve got a wonderful guest today who’s got some wonderful ideas for families who are suffering and in pain and I’m really excited about having her on.  Would you like to introduce her?
H: Sure, I’d love to.  Our guest today is Diana Gardner-Williams and our topic is “Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away.”  Diana Gardner-Williams is the mother of a three-year-old son, two early pregnancy losses, and one stillbirth.  Nearly three years after losing her stillborn son Tanner, Diana set out to provide a creative outlet for parents to acknowledge and preserve the legacy of their “angel babies.”  Diana is owner and founder of Just a Cloud Away, Inc., which provides specialty scrapbook remembrance kits to families grieving the loss of their baby.  Diana is also a professional landscape designer and has a passion for developing Memory Gardens to help those grieving the loss of a loved one.  Welcome to the show, Diana.
D: Hi, thanks.
G: Hi, Diana.  It’s great to have you on the show.  When I first heard about you and went to your website and looked at www.justacloudaway.com website and looked at the picture of that baby, that is the dearest picture.  It’s a baby on a cloud and the idea of just a cloud away is, well, it’s just kind of an amazing thing.  Who did that fabulous picture for you?
D: Actually that is a picture of my living son as a baby, and my graphic artist took my vision and created our logo for Just a Cloud Away.
G: It’s so compelling.  It’s just beautiful.
H: I love that.
G: It’s just an incredible thing.  Well, talk about you lost your baby almost at term.
D: It was 38, 39 weeks.
H: And how far along were you when you say that?  How far along is that?  Is that in the 9th month or –
D: Oh, yeah.  It was one, two weeks before his due date.
H: Oh, wow.  Okay.
D: So everything was great and usually it is when stillbirths happens.  Everything goes along just fine.  With our first baby –
G: And did you know whether it was a boy or a girl?  Did you have the ultrasound?
D: Oh, we knew early on.  He had his name.  He had his identity.
G: Because that’s one of the things we’ve talked to experts and other people on the show about.  How connected we are to our babies before birth now, right, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.  And like you said, if you carried him to term, that’s a huge connection.
D: Yeah.  So little Tanner Nanner was coming to us and he came a little early and I don’t know if you want me to talk about the actual experience of giving birth to him.
G: Well, whatever you’d like to talk about.  I’m sure our audience would like to hear whatever you want to discuss with us.
D: It was a terrible pregnancy because I suffered greatly from round ligament stretching and back pain and heartburn, and it was just a long nine months.  And he came.  I started having contractions on the 28th of September and that happened to be my husband’s birthday.  Before we went to the hospital, I gave my husband his birthday presents and then we took off to the hospital.  I just have a really short poem that kind of sums up the whole experience.
September 28th, 2003
6 long months
2 pink lines
Excitement, joy, goose bumps
Jungle nursery
First kicks - May 29th, 2003
Baby showers
Contractions
Todd’s birthday present
Take a shower
Call the doctor
Excitement, joy, goose bumps
Waiting room
Small examining room
Bright, white fluorescent lights
Fetal Doppler
Silence
Todd
Oxygen mask
3 nurses
No words
Sonogram
Expressionless
Todd asks
No, no, no
Todd and I as one
My parents
My in-laws
No, no, no
Swallow heart
White rose on door
12 hours
Nurse Tracy
Baby Tanner
Silence
Tears, love, emptiness
Beautiful baby boy
Our son
5 pounds 4 ounces, 21 inches long
Tanner Lee Williams
G: Wow.
D: Our story.
H: That’s powerful.
G: That is really powerful and one of the things that it brings up for me is how some of the ways you talk about healing, some of the ways that you talk about what people can do is poetry.  And how fantastic.
H: And how it really describes what you went through.
D: Yeah.  It’s really not a poem.  I’m calling it a poem because I don’t know what else to call it.
G: I would call it a poem.  I certainly would.  It’s lovely.
H: Absolutely.
G: Now talk about why you wrote, and why you write, and what would you suggest to others?
D: I was just born creative with a creative gene and sometimes it’s not a blessing because it’s hard to sleep at night because I’m thinking of ways to create memorials for everyone.  And why I wrote.  I wrote mother stories.  I did drawings of my son which are on the website as well.  My husband and I created a shadow box for our family room to place all of his mementos.  I journal.  I take pictures of the sky and keep a sky journal on days that I feel Tanner is with me.
H: I love that idea.
D: Because it’s something that other parents can do because a lot of early pregnancy loss is you don’t have those tangible things.  So I think that’s something that people can do.  There’s always subtle ways to include your children on your greeting cards that you send, a little angel, a little stamp.  My husband also got a little hand tattoo and put a T under it.
G: Now didn’t you say he had that before and he put a T under it?
D: Yes.  That was a joke because when we first got married, my husband had a little tattoo of a hand on his arm and I always teased him.  What does that mean?  He’s like I don’t know.  I don’t know.  And when Tanner passed, he put a T under it and told me now it has meaning.
G: Yeah, and tattoos are very big now, aren’t they, Heidi?
H: They are.  In fact I have a tattoo on my ankle and it’s a butterfly and it represents the death of my brother and when I adopted my daughter from China, I put a little yin yang symbol in the middle which represents the people that are coming into our lives.  So though we’re losing many people in our lives, people come in as well.
G: Yeah, so that’s certainly an idea.  I want to talk to you about your garden, too, because people should go to your site.  It’s really lovely to see that and it started out with people giving you things, didn’t it?
D: Yeah, my husband’s in the landscape industry as well working for a different company so we’re both really, really active outside and I just love puttering in the garden.  And so people were donating flowers and trees and just gift certificates to plant nurseries.
G: What a clever idea to donate a gift certificate to a plant nursery.  I love that.
D: Yeah, because they don’t know actually where you’re going to put the garden if you are going to do a garden.  It could be in the shade, it could be in the sun so I designed a garden almost immediately after he passed, probably a month afterward because my juices were flowing and the plants were coming in.  And we actually got stone donated, too, for the patio and the stone benches and then a friend of ours created Tanners cross.  So a lot of different things were –
G: A garden gives a lot of people an opportunity to do things, doesn’t it?  I mean they could even pick up a shovel.
D: Yes, yes.
H: You can come together, like you said, and everybody’s active.
D: Right.  One suggestion that I had made before was if money is an issue, maybe have a celebration on the spot where you’d like to have the garden and just invite people over and share with them your vision and just ask for donations for your baby’s garden.  And people want to do something and they really don’t know what to do when you lose a child.
H: And it can be stressful for people just to come over and sit.  Oftentimes they don’t know how to.  But if you said to them hey, you know what?  I want to get a garden started.  Can you come over and help me?  It gives them something to do especially a lot of men and they feel like they’re helping you and it’s helping you to heal.
G: And what a wonderful place to be able to sit if you have a bench there for these people after they do it, I think, and a place to be able to come.  Well, it’s time for us to come up to break and I’m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley and please stay tuned to hear more from Diana Gardner-Williams about “Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away.”  You can call us today and our number is 1-866-472-5792.  If you’d like to email us about this show or upcoming shows, you can reach us through our blog, www.thegriefblog.com.  Also we’re getting wonderful comments on the blog for people telling their story and asking for support and people are logging in with some wonderful comments.  So please go to our blog and read about it and also contribute to the blog.  Stay tuned for more.
Well, Diana, we were talking when we went to break about your work with the gardens and I wanted to go back to your pregnancy a little bit.  Because you had two early pregnancy losses.  When was the first one and how far did you go with that pregnancy?
D: My two early pregnancy losses happened a long time ago and it just wasn’t the time so when my son Tanner died of a stillbirth, I was actually grieving three losses because I never really grieved my other two pregnancies.  And I have named my babies.
G: Now is that recent that you named the other two after Tanner died?
D: Yes, and that is one gift that my stillborn son gave me is the acknowledgement of my two early pregnancy losses.
H: And so they were first-term pregnancy losses, I take it.
D: Yes.
H: I also had two first-term pregnancy losses and it’s nice to know that right now for those people that are listening that have miscarried during the first trimester or the second or the third, you can go back and rename your babies.  I love that you did that.  If you haven’t acknowledged it, it’s okay now to say you know what?  After hearing the show it’s okay to name my baby and to acknowledge that I’ve had the loss of this child.
G: Now what did you name your other two?
D: Bobby and Bailey.
G: Were they both boys or is Bailey a girl?  Or didn’t you know?
D: I think Bailey was a girl.  I have no idea but I’m thinking Bailey was a girl.
G: So Bobby, Bailey –
H: And Tanner.
G: Tanner and –
D: My living child is named Shivere.
G: How do you spell that?  That’s an unusual name.
D: S-H-I-V-E-R-E.
G: And that’s a boy.
D: Yes, he’s a boy.
H: And were you stressed out, and I probably know the answer to this already, when you were delivering Shivere?
D: No.
H: Wow.  That’s great to hear.
D: I wasn’t and I wasn’t stressed the entire pregnancy.  I had a couple of nervous times but I figured that I had gone through the worst with Tanner and go ahead, give it to me because I’m ready.  I can handle it.
G: That’s very interesting that you say that because I’ve heard many parents and many thoughts about one of the things that happens that I guess you could call it positive if anything is that you do lose some of your fear.
D: Yes, I’m not afraid to die anymore because I know that I’m going to be very welcome up there.
G: And so there’s a courage that develops.  I know our audience is probably going to want to know more about how Tanner actually died.  Why was he born still?
D: Well, he had a very long umbilical cord and it was wrapped around his neck three times so he had passed away three days prior to his delivery.  I did not know it because I was a first-time mom and what was happening was the Braxton-Hicks contractions were making me believe that he was alive and I knew that the movements were completely different, but I thought well, he’s almost ready to come.  And so the contractions were actually squeezing him and moving him so that I thought that he was moving on his own and that wasn’t the case.  So we don’t know if I started to contract because my body was ready to expel something that wasn’t alive so that’s just a possibility.  So it was just – You try to think okay, what did I do, what did I do?  Did I reach up to grab something and I don’t know, but they say that’s not the case and I was like please tell me he didn’t suffer.  And the doctor said no, he couldn’t have suffered.  He just went to sleep.
H: In a very warm, nice nurturing place.
D: Yes.
G: For our audience out there who has had this experience, who has had a stillbirth are thinking how did you do it?  After you had the baby, did you keep thinking that I hope he didn’t suffer and how did you deal with all that?  Was it your doctor’s reassurance or what helped you?
D: Oh, my nurse was just an angel.  Wow, she was with me the entire time they had to induce me.  I thought I was going to have a C-section but that’s unnecessary surgery so in my poem it was 12 hours.  12 hours and my in-laws were there and my husband and my girlfriend.  And my parents were out of state so it was very difficult for them. 
G: So your parents weren’t there?
D: No.  They flew in as fast as they could, but he came on his own actually.  They had given me anesthesia to numb the pain and I was throwing up so I think that the force from me throwing up kind of forced him out because the nurse picked up the blanket there and said he’s here.
G: And so they cleaned up the baby and you held him.
D: Yes, yes.
G: That’s so great now that that’s happening because years ago my mother-in-law had the same type of thing and they never allowed her to see the baby. 
D: Not only did they do that, but I had them put him in the morgue until my parents could meet him.
H: That’s nice.
G: So everyone saw him.
H: Well, and like you said, Diana, there’s no way even if you’ve had children before, there’s no way that we can know whether or not our children have died when we’re carrying them.  It’s just you don’t know those things.  I mean sometimes my son would be quiet and sometimes he would move.  I mean we just don’t know, but the fact that I’ve had a couple of miscarriages, you do wonder what did I do wrong?  What could I have done differently?  And you couldn’t have done anything differently.  You just start to blame – I started to blame myself.  Was it that Diet Coke I had?  Did I do something wrong?  Was I under too much stress?  And sometimes these things just happen and there’s no reason for it.
D: You can’t obsess over that.  It’s just wasted energy.  Use your energy to memorialize and keep your child’s memory alive.  I know that’s easy to say now.
G: Maybe part of the message is you will get to the point where you can do that, too, right?  And when you can, let’s talk about some of the ideas that you have because they’re really wonderful and you can find them on her website which are great.  I love some of your ideas and do you draw all your cards?
D: I draw.  I drew a nice pencil sketch of Tanner with angel wings and hair.  I never saw his hair but it gave me comfort and so that is on the website also.  I have a cousin who also had a stillbirth and I did a pencil sketch of her, too.  So like I said, I’m always creating memorials.
G: Well, you talk about the importance of naming the baby and you’ve talked about naming your miscarriages that you had early and how Tanner’s arrival caused you to deal with the fact that you had had three babies.  I like the idea next and there are pictures on her website of the picture of Tanner.  There’s a plaque.  I guess it’s in the garden?
D: Um-hm.
G: And then another thing is I liked your idea about choosing a theme for your baby so people can purchase mementos of significance.  The butterflies or sun symbolizing rebirth.  I thought that was really sweet.  A theme that people could put a little butterfly in the garden or something.
D: Right.
G: I thought that was great.
H: I’m just curious about using your energy and my mom’s talking about this right now, to memorialize.  How long after Tanner died did you feel like you had enough energy to start memorializing?  Was it immediately?
D: No, I probably spent the entire month afterwards in an intoxicated state.  That’s how I dealt with it.  I started drinking wine at 9:00 in the morning and I passed out at suppertime, but that was my way.
H: And that lasted for how long would you say?
D: A month.
H: A month.  Okay, and then what happened where you woke up one day and said okay, I need to make a shift?  I mean, you just all of a sudden woke up a month later and said look, I need to do something different here?
D: I think it was when the plants started coming in.  And I was like I have to do something so I designed the garden and so a month later is when –
G: Who sent you your first plant?  Do you remember?
D: I think it was my father-in-law’s former soccer team.  Yeah, so it was from a high school.
G: They sent you a plant?  Do you remember what it was?
D: They sent three crape myrtle trees that are in the garden so little did they know that it doesn’t represent me, my husband, and Tanner but my three children in heaven.
G: So they really propelled you out of a state of being fairly out of it with alcohol for a month, huh?
D: Oh, most definitely.
H: And I was going to say something about this.  Diana, here you’ve had a pregnancy and we have to remember you’re recovering.  Your milk is letting down.  Your body’s recovering from having a baby.  And so that I think would be an emotional thing to go through as well.
D: Yes, it was at Tanner’s memorial service at the church when I was in the receiving line and receiving lots of really big hugs and my chest was just about to explode, and I didn’t realize what was happening because I completely forgot about it.  So when I got home that night it dawned on me what was going on.
H: Which is a constant reminder.  I mean you already have enough but that’s a physical reminder also.
D: Yes.
G: Well, it’s time for us to go to break again.  I’m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host Dr. Heidi Horsley.  You can call us on this show at 1-866-472-5792 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.  You can also get in touch with us on www.thegriefblog.com, comment on this show, let us know if there are other shows that you would like us to present, other guests that we might have.  We’re talking to Diana Gardner-Williams today with “Pregnancy Loss: Our Babies are Just a Cloud Away.”  Stay tuned for more.
G: Well, Diana, let’s talk about your scrapbooks.
D: Okay.
G: How did you get involved with doing that and on your website, www.justacloudaway.com, I guess that’s a picture of you scrapping away or drawing or something?
D: Yep, that’s me.
G: And below that, maybe we’ll talk about this for a second, is a picture of two babies and I think from what I read, that is a picture of your son.  Is it Shivere?
D: Shivere?
G: Your son Shivere and Tanner, right?  And you did it on a birth announcement?
D: Actually it was our Christmas card that we sent out that mortified some people.  But what I did was the first year or Shivere’s first Christmas with us, I couldn’t send out just a picture of Shivere without feeling guilty so I superimposed them together and created the Christmas card and now I find out years later that friends and family were very worried about me back then, but they didn’t say anything, and I’m so glad they didn’t because it would have been World War IV.
H: Now I would imagine that anyone that’s had the death of a sibling or a child would find that fine.  If I would get a card like that, I’d think, wow, this is amazing that she’s recognizing Tanner and that the boys are together.
G: I imagine you had both camps – people who thought it was wonderful and people who thought it wasn’t and then the people in between who didn’t have a thought.
D: But you know what?  It was the first year that I did it.  I didn’t do it again so that made me feel good and damn it all, that’s what I did. 
G: So what would you say to people out there that want to do something like that?
D: I am lucky to have supportive family and friends.  A lot of people are not as lucky, but I say do what works for you.
G: Go for it, right?
D: Yep.
H: And we all grieve individually, and if it helps you to heal, that’s what’s important.
D: Exactly.
G: What I love about your website is people may not want to do a card that way – and also your baby was full term – but you’ve got so many ideas on here.  I mean they can pick and choose and also it can give people other ideas.  Like your return address, those little tabs you buy where it’s got your return address on it.  You’ve got even your dog on yours.
D: All three of them.
G: And so you can see an idea for putting your child’s name with a little picture or some kind of a little symbol on your return address because they’re part of your family if that’s something you want to do.  But talk about your scrapbooking and how did you get into it and when did you start?  You started with your memory garden.
D: Right, and the drawings and later on I thought well, how am I going to memorialize my two other children? 
G: Now those are two other miscarriages for folks that have just tuned in.  And how are you going to memorialize them so go ahead.
D: So with early pregnancy losses, we don’t have all those tangible mementos.  So after my long bout with grieving – and I really was obsessed with finding out more about heaven – so I reconnected with the church, and I am so sure that I am going to see my children again.  So that was why I created one page, a heaven and earth page so that I can create one page with all my family members on one page.  My children in heaven, my living child, my husband and myself so that the entire family unit is together.
G: And this is your scrapbook, right? that you’re talking about.
D: This was in the kit, yes.  The Just a Cloud Away –
G: So there’s a kit that you can get and there’s a page where you can put all your children in?
D: All your children – your husband, wife, you can put grandparents or you can just put your children.  But it’s a heaven and earth so that we’re not leaving anyone out because it was not an option for me to create a separate baby book for my children in heaven that would just be put away.  I wanted these pages to be included within the family scrapbook because they’re family.
H: You know what I think would be really healing would be to have a scrapbook get together, like a party and invite friends, and they could have had losses in their lives, all scrapbook together.
D: Yes.
G: Now do you do that?  Do you suggest that?  Scrapping groups?
D: I do and a lot of support groups throughout the nation dealing with pregnancy and infant loss, they do have monthly scrapbooking meetings.
H: That’s wonderful.  I love that idea.
G: I do, too.  I know Heather, Heidi’s sister, is a scrapbooker.  She gets together and I don’t know if she still does it –
H: Right, she gets together monthly.
G: Yeah, they had a monthly scrapbooking where they just took all the pictures of the family and scrapbooked all the time.  But I love your idea that there’s no reason to leave any of your children out of our scrapbooks.  That’s a great idea.
H: And like you said, to incorporate them into the family because if you just did a separate book for Tanner or for the kids that you’ve lost in a miscarriage, they might be put away and no one would ever look at them again.
D: Right.
G: Now talk about your sympathy baskets.
D: Because I’ve been through it myself, I know what I enjoyed and what really made sense and it’s not just things that are memorials.  It can be practical things like money because usually the parents are taking time off of work and they’re missing out.  Shoveling, any housework, oh, how wonderful.  Food.
G: I like your idea of a gift certificate for food, too.  I mean you could give them a certificate to a restaurant.
H: I know people that have shoveled and not told anyone.  They’ve gone in and shoveled people’s driveways and front walk and when they came out it was done.
D: Oh, yeah.
H: Like you said, those are great ideas because if you just go to someone’s house and sit there, then it’s a lot of work for them.
D: Um-hm.  One thing my sister-in-law did was she actually created a Just a Cloud Away kit for Tanner and that’s off to the right there and I call that a love memorial because it’s so special to me.  And I know that my son is very special to a lot of people out there.
G: Now talk about going back to church.  I think that is also very interesting because I know sometimes I’m a therapist and sometimes when people are really at loose ends, I will recommend that they might want to consider – and I’m not saying they should – but they might want to consider going back to the church with their child.
H: And the other part of that, Mom, I’ve got to tune in here for a minute, is some people when they have had the death of a child or sibling or loss, they get so angry at God that they turn away from the church.  So it’s interesting that the church was a place of comfort.
D: Wow was it big.  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  That’s one of the greatest gifts Tanner has given to me is that after 17 years being away from the church, I found it.  It found me.  God found me.  I was driving around in December, our first Christmas, and I was like I need to find a place to pray and I was led to St. Pius X in Greensboro here, and I went in and I just wanted to go in and pray.  And there was a waiting line for the confessional and I was like oh, no, what do I do?  And I said okay, I’m just going to stay and I’m going to go for it and that’s what I did.  And the priest, the monsignor, was wonderful and I joined the church.  I’m part of the Garden Committee and I’ve met so many wonderful people and gone on retreats and I’m pretty active.
H: And that’s a Catholic church?
D: It’s a Catholic church and it was just awesome, it’s awesome.
H: It’s a wonderful story.  Well, and I’ve got to say I live here in New York City, but there’s churches all over here and you don’t have to be a member of a Catholic church to go in and you can go in and light candles for people that have died and you can pray and you can just be there and then leave which is wonderful.
G: And what about being angry with God?  People are saying now yeah, but – and Heidi, you said it about people dropping away.  I love what our Rabbi Grollman said on the show.  He said God can take it.  You can be angry at God all you want.  God can take it.
D: He can take it, and I just went to a memorial service, a Christmas service for Tanner.  We do that every year, and the preacher was like, “God can take it but you know what?  His son died for us so He knows what it feels like.”
H: That’s a good point actually.
G: So here I am and I’m hearing you talk and I’m drinking and I’m spending my whole day drinking or taking Valium and sleeping pills and I’m just kind of out of it.  What do you say to me?
D: I will give you a month or two to do that because if that is your way, that’s your way because if anyone intervened with me, I would have been very angry.  And my girlfriend says if you’re doing this six months from now, we’re going to get you some help.  But that was my way.
G: So it’s okay.  You were not judging, but if you’re beyond what?  A couple of months?
D: Yes. 
G: You better kick it in, get some help, whatever.
D: Snap out of it.
G: Snap out of it.  Yeah.  Well, let’s move on to some of the other things that you recommend.  The memorial gardens, the engraving, have your name of your loved one engraved on material that can weather outdoor elements.  I like that.  And a wind chime.  We had Dakota Winds on our show and sent us a beautiful wind chime.
H: Yeah, with Scott, with my brother’s name, engraved on it and then they said every time the wind chime blows, it makes noise now and I hear it and I think of my brother.  I love that.
D: Yep.
H: And how about a scent.  You said you remember a scent of firewood or whatever.  You can sit down and burn that and think about your child.
D: Yes, because I’m a landscape designer and at that time in my life I had a client out in the country that I would drive out there and people would be burning fires.  So when I was pregnant with Tanner frequently I smelled fresh cedar wood burning and I loved that smell.  So that is Tanner’s smell and everything having to do with autumn – pumpkins, spice, cinnamon, it’s just what I had in the house.  It’s everything is Tanner in the autumn, well, Shivere, too, because they’re sharing birthday seasons.
G: Well, that’s kind of a double-edged sword, isn’t it?  Early on it comes to bite you.
D: Yes.
G: When you smell that smell, when you see, say it’s wintertime for some of our folks and there’s the snow and the snowflakes and different things.
H: The holidays.
G: Yeah, the holidays and all those kinds of things are bittersweet in many ways.  And as time goes on, I think that you’re bringing up for us, Diana, that the memories become more good than negative.
D: They sure do because I tell you, I cry all the time, and I love to cry because I feel so much better afterward.  And it might not be a sobbing cry, a little teary-eyed, but any cry is good for me.
G: And then you talk about support groups and you found it in your church.  You were talking about Haven of Hope & Healing, Inc. is one support group.  Is that national?
D: No, no, it’s local here in Graham, North Carolina, and it’s small and it’s an open forum and I just felt so comfortable.  I wanted to talk, talk, talk and this allowed me to talk because men and women grieve differently, of course, so I think I talked my husband’s ear off and I wanted to talk more.  So joining this group was wonderful.
H: Did you feel like that the very first time you went into it?  Were you comfortable right away or did you feel like, wait a minute, I don’t want to hear everybody’s stories?
D: I brought my girlfriend with me just in case.
H: Oh, that’s a good idea.
D: Yeah, I felt very comfortable because the facilitator and the founder, Christie Moser, was very comforting, and I just loved it.
G: I love that idea of going along with someone and I think it can also be helpful and you’re what?  You’re five years out? 
D: Four, yes.
G: Yeah, helping, maybe going with someone else, too, and taking someone along is a wonderful thing to do.  Well, we’re coming up on break and when we come back from break, Diana, you were talking about how men grieve differently than women and I think our audience probably piqued up with that.  We’d love to talk about that more when we come back from break.  We’re on our final break and I’m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host Dr. Heidi Horsley.  You can reach us through our blog, www.thegriefblog.com.  Remember that all the shows are archived.  We have over 125 shows now that you can listen to.  One of my friends recently who’s in our Palo Alto Compassionate Friends group was talking about the fact that she’s been waking up at 4:00 o’clock in the morning and listening to the shows.  And it’s so wonderful to know that we’re supporting people out there throughout the day and the Internet’s a wonderful thing so please tell your friends about it and stay tuned for more today to hear from Diana about pregnancy loss.
Diana, this is our last break and it’s just been a wonderful show and there are so many things that we could go on with.  But one of the things I wanted to talk to you about before we close the show was something you said as we went into the break which was men and women grieve so differently, because you’re talking about your friends and going to group and I wondered where Todd was in all this.
D: Well, now that it’s years later, I can talk about this.  It really was difficult and you don’t really know how one another are going to grieve.  Who anticipates something so devastating?  So this really puts the test on your marriage.  Men are so different.  My husband would internalize it and actually building our son’s memory garden was a wonderful outlet for him because he made those benches so level, the mortared stone used in building them and constructing them.  It was perfection and we thought about it because I wanted to get his garden done and finished quickly and it took a long time to build those benches but having an outlet for him to use his energy like that is wonderful.
G: Now these are the wonderful stone benches that you have in the picture?
D: Yes, yes.
G: They’re lovely.  There’s a flat stone circle and a cross and then these wonderful stone benches around it.
H: And it sounds like he made those benches out of love for Tanner and as a tribute to his son.
D: Yes, yes.
G: Now did he have friends help him do that?  Did they have to help him carry the stuff or did he do it all on his own?
D: No, he pretty much did it.  He had one friend help one day but he pretty much was very particular about the construction of those benches and that was his way.  And my way was he’d come home from work and I’d say well, did you mention Tanner’s name?  Who did you talk to about Tanner?  Tanner, Tanner, Tanner.  He’s like I didn’t talk to anyone about him.  And I was like why, why?  I just wanted to talk.
G: I would imagine that if a man went to work, I don’t know what your thought is, Heidi, and they knew that you’d had what a lot of the world might term as a miscarriage, you’d lost the child, men probably don’t like to talk about what the term was and all that kind of stuff so they would go and they would probably say I would guess 90% of the time, “how’s your wife doing?” 
H: Okay.
D: Yeah.
G: I really doubt if a lot of men would say, “And how are you doing?”  Would you think, Heidi?
H: No, especially after a stillbirth because you’ve been through so much and yeah, I would think the same thing.  And I also think men would be hesitant to want to talk about it because they’re uncomfortable. 
G: Yeah, and I think men don’t want to see other men cry or get uncomfortable.  So I think it’s a little difficult for them.  A lot of men talk about the difficulty of crying at work.  Women can cry.  Well, Hillary Clinton was a perfect example recently where the world, and it might even have increased her popularity.  Whereas Muskie years ago cried because the press dished his wife and that ended his run for the presidency.  So you can see it’s a little different thing.  So he didn’t want to go to groups with you?
D: After a while he went to a few but for Todd, talking wasn’t his thing.  And after a while I accepted that because you really have to work together.  It’s such a stress on your marriage and just stress on your different grieving styles that you have to respect each other because you both love your kids.  The love is there, it’s just shown differently.
H: And you’re making a good point and like you said, just because he didn’t talk doesn’t mean that he didn’t find other outlets to heal.  He found other ways to heal.
D: Yes.
G: I think that’s so important.  Everybody has their own way and I think as women sometimes we’re like you’ve got to get it out, you’ve got to talk.  And we’re finding that’s not necessarily the case, that people make the benches and do that kind of thing.  And he can go out and look at his benches and sit down and think about his child whenever he wants to.  So wonderful.  Well, I would suggest to our audience that they definitely go to your website.  One of the things I wanted to run down before we close the show is a comfort basket for men because you’ve got ideas for people, what they can do for men and I think that’s so great that there’s actually something.  You’re talking about a gift certificate to a hardware store or bookstore or plant nursery which is an interesting thought.  And you’ve got a memory garden tip sheet for men to build a memory garden.  Is that what it is?
D: Right. 
G: And you talk about they can do bird houses or stepping stones or –
D: Craft kits.  There are so many craft kits out there that they can make as a tribute for their children.
G: And you say a book on pregnancy loss from a man’s perspective.  Is there one?
D: Yes, there is, and I can’t remember the title but it is out there.
H: I had no idea there was one.
G: You’d better email it to us and we’ll put it on our website.  And then you can do an ornament.  I love this, a Christmas ornament engraved with the baby and daddy’s name on it.
H: That’s nice.
G: Purchase a subscription to a trade publication he would enjoy and create a remembrance kit for their angel.  I think these ideas are so wonderful.  I mean it’s just on and on and it’s time for us to close our show.  And I want to say if people want to get more information on what you’re doing and your ideas and maybe buy some of your kits and some of your things that they go to your website, www.justacloudaway.com, and look at the information on there.  Well, Diana, it’s been great to have you on the show.  Before we close the show, do you have something you’d like to leave our audience with?
D: Yes, I do.  We did expand our family but instead of having a living child we had a beautiful angel named Tanner.
H: Wonderful.
G: Thank you very much and it’s time to close our show and we want to thank Diana Gardner-Williams for talking to us about pregnancy loss and the fact that our babies are just a cloud away.  Next week our guest will be Rosemary Smith whose children, Drew and Jeremiah, died in 1992.  Rosemary’s the author of Children of the Dome as well as a documentary Space Between Breaths.  Rosemary is greatly loved.  She’s a pharmacist and she sends fabulous gift boxes out to people.  So please stay tuned again next week to hear Rosemary at 9:00 Pacific Standard, 12:00 Eastern for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope, renewal and support.  Remember others have been there before you and made it, you can, too.  You need not walk alone.  Thanks for listening.  I’m your host Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.  Diana, Tanner, Bobby and Bailey are gone but never forgotten.  They live on in your heart and in your memories and in all the wonderful memory gardens.  Thank you so much for your wonderful work that you do.
D: Thank you.