​

I felt pain in the lower half of my body. Everything below my navel felt like it was on fire. At first, I thought I was just having a horrible dream, but then the darkness of my sleep faded away and I realized that I was awake; the pain was real.

            

I sat up, with a little bit of difficulty with my slightly swollen stomach and pulled back the covers of my duvet. What I saw made me scream and wake my husband. The entire sheet beneath me was covered in blood.

 

I miscarried. Again.

 

***

 

The first time I had a miscarriage, I was alone. My husband had to go on a business trip and was gone for a week. I remember walking around our living room, doing some light cleaning since my Babushka was coming over for dinner. She did not tolerate messiness. Although her term for messiness bordered on neurotic, for if one thing was out of place, she would consider the entire room messy.

 

I had just finished polishing the coffee table when I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. I paused, thinking it would go away; I was due for my period any day. The pain intensified and fell to my knees. I tried to stand up, so that I could get to the bathroom, but the pain didn’t subside. Instead, I crawled. It felt like hours before I reached the master bathroom. 

​

I was leaning back on the counter when I looked down. My pants, a light tan color, were darkened around my crotch area. It had taken me a few minutes to realize that it was blood. I remember thinking, I don’t bleed this much during my period...do I? My periods also didn’t have cramps that intense. I didn’t have long to think about it before another wave of pain hit me like a tsunami. All I thought of was that I had to wait it out. My phone had been left on the kitchen table, so I couldn’t call anyone.

            

I don’t remember how long I was alone for before I heard the front door open, followed by an accented-thick “Roza!” My Babushka.

​

“In here,” I yelled as I grit my teeth through another wave of pain. Babushka was in the bathroom by the time the pain subsided, even if it was just for a moment. I watched her as she surveyed the scene in front of her, her clear green eyes, so much like my own, holding a hint of understanding as they took in my blooded pants and pained expression.

 

“You are still in pain, zvezda moya,” she questioned gently. I just nodded my head, not being able to articulate a response. Babushka muttered something in Russian before going over to the bath and turning on the water before leaving.

 

About five to ten minutes later, she appeared with fresh clothes. She helped me stand up and stripped me of my clothes before she had me gently lower myself into the tub. The water instantly became a transparent red, reminding me more of the fact that I was bleeding - still was bleeding - out of my vagina. That shouldn’t have been an issue since I had been getting my period since I was twelve years old. However, this hadn’t been like all of my other periods.

 

Babushka then began to start washing me with a fresh washcloth from the linen closet along with a towel. As she cleaned my body, the pain had subsided after I had been put in the water and she sang one of the old Russian lullabies that she used to sing to me after the death of my mother.

 

After I was completely clean, and the only pain I felt from my abdomen was just the soreness of my muscles from the intense pain I had experienced, I pulled myself out of the tub and got dressed under the watchful eye of my Babushka. Once I was dressed, I walked out to the living room and sat on the couch, trying to figure out what had just happened. Babushka made her way into the kitchen and started to brew some tea. She didn’t say anything; she seemed to be waiting on me to speak, or at least give some form of reaction.

 

When the tea was ready, Babushka set down a cup in front of me, silently ordering me to drink it. I took a sip and it immediately calmed my nerves. When I still didn’t say anything as I silently sipped my tea, Babushka spoke.

 

“You do know what happened here, no?”

 

I stared at her blankly as her sharp eyes pierced through my gaze, looking for her answer. Apparently, I didn’t have the answer she was looking for, as she sighed before taking the cup of tea out of my hands. 

​

“Zvezda moya, I know you know what happened. Darling, you miscarried.”

 

Her stating what I had subconsciously been not acknowledging, shattered me. I cried. I cried like I had when my mother died all of those years ago. Babushka didn’t say anything, just rubbed soothing strokes across my honey blonde hair to soothe me. 

            

I don’t know how long I cried for; it was on-and-off for hours before I was all dried out. Once I had been rendered to only hiccups, Babushka spoke.

 

 “I will clean the evidence of the miscarriage. Don’t say anything to Richard; men don’t need to know these things.”

 

I stared at her in slight disbelief. I knew Babushka was a bit old-fashioned, but this was just ridiculous, even for her.

 

“Babushka, I can’t not tell Richard. This was his baby too. And since we’ve been trying, this could impact Richard and I having another baby.”

 

“Go to the doctor then. But don’t tell Richard!”

 

With that, she went off and started to clean the towels and my bloodstained clothes, before going to clean out the tub. I could only stare at her in shock before I decided to call my OBGYN and make an appointment to get everything checked out.

 

~*~

 

My OBGYN appointment had been quick and simple. The miscarriage hadn’t affected my uterus, which surprised me since I had felt so much pain. The doctor however assured me that what I had felt was normal.

 

Before I had left, I asked my doctor about how often this occurs. She responded with 10-25% but that it happens a lot more right after conception, especially if the conception occurred around the time of the woman's period, so some women don’t realize that they had miscarried. She said that I had only been six and a half weeks, which isn’t an abnormal time for miscarriages to happen.

 

I left the doctor’s office feeling slightly better about the situation, but my mind was still caught up on what Babushka had said. I thought about all of my friends who had suffered miscarriages and went through the motions with their husbands. A lot of those times, their relationships became really strained.

 

However, I was a different case. I hadn’t known that I was pregnant, nordid my husband. Maybe Babushka was right; maybe I shouldn’t tell him.

 

Throughout my entire time of pondering, I had made my way to the front of my apartment building. As I was going in, the doorman stopped me.

 

“Missus Thompson, your grandmother left you a gift. She left it for you in your apartment.”

 

Giving him a confused look, I thanked him nonetheless, before climbing into the elevator. As the elevator ascended, I tried to rack my brain around what it could be that she left me. When the elevator reached the fifth floor, I got off and swiftly made my way down the left corridor. 

 

When I entered my apartment, I didn’t notice anything at first. I checked the living room, Richard and I’s bedroom, the kitchen, and the spare room, but found nothing. However, when I walked into the living room from the spare room, I saw her gift.

 

In a medium to large size plant pot was a small size white rose bush sitting near the windowsill. I walked over and lightly touched the petals of the beautiful flower. I then noticed the card that was leaning against the pot. The card was addressed to me and was simple in design. It stated:

 

Zvezda moya,

May the roses remind you of what I said.

Babushka

 

It took me a moment to figure out what she meant before I remembered what the symbolism for white roses meant. They meant secrecy and silence in some cases, and this was one of those cases.

 

I felt torn. My Russian heritage that my Babushka instilled in me was screaming at me to keep quiet on the matter, while the American culture I had grown up around was fighting back, begging me to tell Richard. I had never felt so torn.

 

~*~

 

The second time I had a miscarriage, I didn’t even know I had miscarried. After my first miscarriage, I had settled to agreeing with my ancestral roots and not tell Richard. And things worked out fine. Our lives stayed the same. Both of us going to work, having date nights, family dinners with Babushka, and nights out with our friends. Everything was normal. Except when I looked at the white rose bush in our living room. It seemed to haunt me a little bit every time I watered it. At first it would bother me, keep me up at night, but as the days went by, I learned to come to terms with what happened and my guilt over not telling Richard. 

 

After the incident, Richard and I kept on trying to get but to no avail. Fed up, I talked to Richard and we both agreed to get tested, just to see if anything was wrong. Richard got tested first and passed all of the tests with flying colors. When I went into my OBGYN, I got news that I didn’t expect to hear.

 

“Well, you are a happy and fertile woman, Rose. I can’t find anything wrong in any of your blood work or tests,” said my doctor as she went over my file. “However, I do have to ask; did you know you miscarried three weeks ago?”

 

At first, I thought I hadn’t heard her right but after I had her repeat the question twice, she got her answer. Scared, I asked her how long I was when I miscarried.

 

“It’s hard to say, but not very far in. Since it wasn’t as intense as your last miscarriage, I figure you were about 3 maybe 4 weeks.”

​

“Will this affect my ability to conceive Dr. Knatz?”

 

“It shouldn’t. Most likely you suffered a chemical imbalance that resulted in the miscarriage, a lot of women get them. However, since you are trying to get pregnant, I would suggest keeping an eye on what you eat and drink, so that if you do get pregnant it doesn’t affect the baby and you can get out of the first trimester. The first trimester is always the tricky one, but don’t fret, you shouldn’t have too many issues.”

 

With that, Dr. Knatz printed off a list of foods and drinks I should avoid before sending me off. On the walk home, I came across a flower shop. Out front they were selling potted roses of different colors. The yellow roses caught my eye the most. All I could think of when I saw them was, Yellow roses can mean a promise of a new beginning and remember me. Next thing I knew, I was buying a pot of yellow roses.

            

I held the pot close to my heart all the way home, where I set it next to the pot of flourishing white roses. My heart ached a little as I thought of not telling my husband. I thought it was the right thing to do.

 

***

​

I stared in shock at the red-stained sheets beneath me. This couldn’t be happening. I vaguely heard Richard calling an ambulance in the background. I tried to move but I fell back in bed in pain. My slightly swollen stomach felt like it was on fire every time I moved. I could hear Richard calling Dr. Knatz, telling her to meet us at the hospital. Shortly after he got off the phone, Richard got dressed, while checking on me before leaving to answer the loud, hurried knock at the door. Next thing I knew, I felt another shot of hot fire through my stomach and I was moving. EMT’s were standing over me, asking me questions that I knew the answers to but couldn’t answer. All I could say was:

 

“Not my baby. Not my baby boy.”

 

Then everything went dark, the EMT’s and Richard’s voices fading as I plunged into further and further into darkness.

 

***

 

I woke up to the smell of sterile chemicals mixed with death and a blinding bright light. My throat felt as dry as the hottest it could get on a summer day in New York City. Disoriented, I looked around my hospital room. I registered all of the different flowers and balloons that said, “Get Well Soon” and “We Send Our Condolences.” To my right, sat Richard, asleep in his chair, holding my hand. I tried to move my hand away without waking him, but the slightest bit of movement roused him from his sleep. It took him a moment to gain his bearings but once he saw that I was awake, he got his wits about him.

 

In a small, cracked voice I asked him, “What happened?”

 

He sighed and ran a hand down his face and threw his tousled brown hair, “You lost the baby, Rose.”

 

“I know I lost the baby, but how? I was being so careful…”

 

“Careful to prevent the other times from repeating?”

            

My eyes snapped to his. His eyes held a little bit of anger, disappointment, but mostly sadness. I looked away in shame, not being able to face him as I spoke.

 

“How did you find out?”

 

“The doctors had to run tests to find out what caused you to lose Nicholas. Dr. Knatz informed me when she realized that I didn’t know.”

 

I looked at him, my eyes pleading for him to answer my next question.

 

“How did I lose him?”

 

“She said that you had a placental abruption, meaning that your placenta detached from your uterus before it was supposed to. Why didn’t you tell me about the other two times, Rose?”

 

His voice matched the emotions swirling in his hazel eyes.

 

“I didn’t think I needed to tell you. I didn’t know I was pregnant when I miscarried both times. The first one caused me to bleed everywhere, Babushka found me in the bathroom, my pants soaked with blood. She told me to not tell you, citing old Russian time stereotypes about it not being your place to know since you’re a man. I struggled for days on whether or not to tell you but when Dr. Knatz said that it was common, I felt like it wouldn’t matter. The second time, I didn’t even feel it. I only found out when I went to get the tests done due to us struggling to get pregnant. Dr. Knatz told me that I was less than 4 weeks when it happened. I just assumed it was my period since it happened when I was supposed to have mine. I felt like they weren’t that big of a deal to make of.”

 

“We still lost two children, Rose.”

 

He sounded so condescending as he said that. My temper flared.

 

“You don’t think I know that! I had to deal with the guilt of not telling you every day since they both happened. I also have to deal with the reminder that I lost the chance to have two children every day because of those two rose bushes.”

 

“Wait. The rose bushes in our living room?”

 

I nodded my head, “Babushka gave me the white one to remind me of our ‘secret’ and as a memorial for the first baby, and I bought the yellow one as a sort of memorial for the second one we lost. I felt like it was the right thing to do.”

 

I looked at his eyes, which had subsided in anger and disappointment. They still held sadness but now help a sympathetic look. That look brought me to tears, as I broke down in front of him. I cried for Nicholas, but I also cried for the two babies that I had lost previously, even though I hadn’t known they were there when they were alive inside of me. He leaned over and kissed my forehead as he pulled me into an embrace, whispering that we would get through this and that it is okay to tell him these things. I fell asleep in his arms, the events of that day - or was it night? - leaving me exhausted.

 

***

            

After spending a week in the hospital under observation, I was finally released to go home but not before I was given antidepressant to help deal with the depression that I started exhibiting after Nicholas’s death. 

 

The drive home with Richard was peaceful; he had taken the entire week off of work to spend it with me as I was recuperating in the hospital. He was even going to take the next week off so that he could help me readjust back at the apartment. As he drove, his right hand held my left hand, rubbing soothing circles on the back of it.

 

The apartment was the same as I had left it, only without the bloodstained sheets. However, something felt off. As I walked out into the living room after putting my purse away, I saw it.

 

A light pink colored rose bush in a potted plant was sitting next to the yellow and white rose bushes. I slowly made my way over and picked up a fallen petal, bringing it to my lips. Light pink stood for admiration and sympathy, I thought as I brought the petal up to take in the light scent it emitted. As I was lost in thought, Richard came up behind me and hugged me.

 

“I thought we could have another one, for Nicholas,” stated Richard as he kissed my hair. “One that could represent what you went through but also my admiration for what you had to go through.”

 

I stared at the three rose bushes before me before I gave Richard a small, sad smile.

 

“I couldn’t agree more.”