Pregnant Pumpkin

I’m 21-weeks pregnant today.

There’s this urge for me to put an exclamation point, a little yelp of excitement to display the very real and overwhelming feeling of joy I have to be halfway-ish through a healthy pregnancy, but something is holding me back. Actually, I’ve had plans to write for several weeks about all sorts of pregnancy-related things. As a woman who questions what eating disorder recovery truly looks like in our current society, I have feelings about my body growing in ways I’ve always feared. I have thoughts about my brain’s attempts to categorize these changes as fine because they will—and must—be temporary and the battle for other parts of my brain to speak louder to say these changes are fine because bodies, every one of them, are fine (and actually amazing). I have love letters to write to the quesadillas and grilled cheeses and frozen chicken nuggets that once might have sent me into weeks-long restriction, but in pregnancy, have shifted into lifesaving comforts. But I’ve been struggling to write and say much about this pregnancy at all. 

“How’re you feeling?” everyone asks, and I feel paralyzed by how to answer. In the first trimester, it was easier to pinpoint the physical discomforts and focus my answer on those—in my pastry chef days, I averaged three hours of sleep per night, but that was nothing compared to first trimester exhaustion—but now that I am solidly in the second trimester I find myself searching for things to say. I could talk about how the selection of clothes that fit currently in my closet has dwindled down to exactly two dresses, one pair of pants, and a Dead & Co. shirt that Christian luckily bought oversized for me recently because it was purple, not because I particularly love the band. 

So, I complain about my clothes and having to buy maternity clothes, I say “it’s so wild” roughly a dozen times, and I change the subject. What I want to say is I’m still not sure if all of this is real. Even my avoidance of purchasing clothes that will fit my expanding body seems to indicate I’m struggling to connect with and accept what’s happening. At our 20-week anatomy scan, I stared at the images of our little baby curled into a kidney bean-shape, and my mind felt like it was filled with helium and threatening to drift away. There they were, squirming and punching and refusing to cooperate as the ultrasound technician tried to get them into various positions to get all the snapshots she needed, and the overwhelming fear consumed me—is this real?

Maybe it’s because of my history of pregnancy loss, maybe all moms feel some dissociation, but I have kept the reality of my baby at a distance. They exist in the books I’m reading about the birthing process and in the registry of onesies and swaddles and booger suckers I’m building, but they are still just very much an idea. I’m so afraid of leaning into the reality of how excited I am to see their puffy cheeks and button nose and rolly polly limbs. Even typing those words feels dangerous and makes my eyes swell with tears. If I start to accept those anatomy photos as my baby and not just the idea of one, I’ll be so vulnerable to the pain of losing them, of something being wrong.

I’ve wanted a baby since I unintentionally got pregnant seven years ago, and yet here I am, afraid that it’s actually happening. I wrote just a few months ago about how I wasn’t going to let my fear of loss and grief keep me from embracing my deep desire for my baby. That baby is here, they are starting to kick me to let me know they’re alive and exploring, and I’m still holding back the extent of my true desire for my baby to be real, just in case. Just in case is filled with millions of stories about plausible birth complications and just as many impossible ones I’ve cooked up in nightmares. It makes me feel a little embarrassed to admit that despite all of my self-reflection, I am still avoiding the joy I so desperately want. I keep letting myself get lost in the what-ifs and trying to plan for the inevitable pain to come. 

Am I ever going to just have a good thing happen to me and let myself feel pure, terrifying joy? I finally sat down to write today in the hopes of letting go of this question and some of my fears. I appreciate the evolutionary role of fear, to help warn me of danger and potential pain, but I am so anxious to give into my heart flutters of excitement and the tears filled with all of the love and patience I’ve held onto for this baby for all these years. Our crib arrived last night, and I want to let myself visualize them and their cotton candy skin, wrapped like a burrito. I want to hear the whispers of the rushed exhales that infants breathe, the grunts of confusion or frustration or exploration. I want to pause when I feel their kicks because that’s how they’re communicating with me right now. Each kick is a little reminder to trust that they’re okay, that we’re okay, that I can relax into this pregnancy. 

So I need to get myself a few more clothing items to wear. I need to help Christian—if only with spirit and snacks—build this crib. I still want to unpack some of my experiences with my body thus far, but first I need to sit with these baby kicks. Just me and them. I need to cry because my excitement for this baby is so big that I feel a little afraid of it. What a gift to be 21-weeks pregnant!

As I continue to try to relax into this moment, I keep noticing I’m called to bake. Part of that pull must be my insatiable appetite, but I also can’t deny the power of creating my own comfort. Baking is a way to feed my literal and figurative hunger, to care for myself, to celebrate my baby speaking to me with cravings and desires. During this week of Chicago’s super harvest moon (that’s a real thing), it had to be pumpkin. 

I’ve talked about sock-it-to-me cake before—I even teased a recipe on social media and never gave it to you—and I wanted to do something like it but with pumpkin. Pecan streusel runs like an artery through this luscious pumpkin cake, and I top the whole thing with a pretty classic cream cheese frosting. The streusel adds a welcome texture to the moist cake. It’s delightfully spiced. It’s so fall. It’s exactly what the baby and I—and luckily some of my friends because this makes a lot of cake—were craving. Let me know if you make it! You don’t even have to get out a mixer if you don’t want to! As always, love to you <3

PUMPKIN SOCK-IT-TO-ME CAKE

Makes 13”x 9” cake

Filling: 

1 cup chopped, toasted pecans

⅓ cup dark brown sugar 

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon 

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature

Pinch of salt

Cake: 

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt 

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ginger 

⅛ teaspoon cloves

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg

1 15-oz can pumpkin puree

1 cup dark brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

¾  cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting:  

1 8-oz block cream cheese, room temperature

7 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons maple syrup

½ teaspoon vanilla bean paste

Pinch of salt

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13” x  9” pan with vegetable spray and line it with parchment paper. 

Make the filling: 

In a small bowl, combine all of the ingredients until it’s a wet, crumbly mixture. I used my hands, but you could use a spoon or spatula, too. Set aside. 

Make the cake: 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. 

In a medium-sized mixing bowl—using the same whisk you just used, don’t you dare dirty another whisk—combine the pumpkin, both sugars, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract until thoroughly mixed. The eggs should break down, the oil should emulsify, and you should have a thick, burnt orange mixture.

Add these wet ingredients into the dry and whisking gently until no flour streaks remain. I use a spatula, as well, just to make sure there aren’t sneaky flour bits on the bottom of the bowl. 

Pour roughly half of the batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the streusel evenly on top, and then spread the rest of the batter on top of the streusel. This won’t be perfect, but you’re going to run a knife through it anyway, so don’t stress. Once the batter is roughly covering the streusel layer, run a knife or offset spatula through the cake, perpendicular to the pan, in little circles or figure eights. 

After swirling, before baking

Once you’ve had enough fun with this, even out the top layer again and bake for 20ish minutes (I would check it after 15). Cool for fifteen minutes in the pan before flipping onto a cooling rack. 

Make the frosting: 

Combine the cream cheese and butter in a large mixing bowl. Using a mixer or a wooden spoon with some arm strength, beat these together until they’re smooth and creamy. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing until no clumps of sugar remain. Add the vanilla paste, syrup, and salt and mix until well-combined and creamy. 

Once the cake is completely cooled, you can frost the cake as is and serve it as a sheet cake, or slice it into squares like I did and serve it as more of a snack cake. Either way, frost generously. Savor full bites with little bits of nuts and pumpkin and cream cheese. Feel the fall breeze in your hair.