In The Fourth Trimester, we ask: What food nourished you after pregnancy? This month it’s a nut-butter brownie from novelist and TV writer Aisha Muharrar.
In August 2020 I returned home from the hospital, having spent a night in Labor and Delivery. I’d gained 40 pounds; my breasts were engorged and leaking. I’d been left with a body that thought it had a baby to care for. But I didn’t have a baby.
Pregnancy loss is about grief, obviously. You are shocked and depressed and angry, but not always in that order. Sometimes it’s a roaring rush of all these emotions at once, a cacophony that paradoxically blends into a dull white noise. The persistent emptiness of what might have been. Meanwhile, you’re also navigating a body that was visibly pregnant moments before, with all the attendant hormones.
In my case, it was a triplet pregnancy, naturally conceived; twins ran in my family, but no one had ever imagined three. The story of the pregnancy is long and complicated, but you should know I bled throughout and was under perinatal care, and at the same time, we were assured that there were many cases of triplet pregnancies resulting in three healthy babies. When my water broke early at 19 weeks, my husband Ben and I rushed to the hospital. Somewhere between miscarriage and stillbirth is what we experienced. They were never alive. And also we held them. We met and said goodbye in the same hour.
It’s a sad story. And not at all “on brand” for me. At the time I was a television writer and producer, working for comedies like Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. Warm-hearted, silly, witty. That was my wheelhouse. In 10 years the most tragic thing I’d written was in Parks when Donna sacrifices her Mercedes-Benz for Leslie’s city council campaign. I’d taken some time away from TV to write a novel about grief complicated by a love triangle, but even in telling that story, I’d found a way to include levity. But my pregnancy loss was a tone shift. Help, I’m a comedy writer stuck in a melodrama! I was in disbelief. This shouldn’t be my story. I should still be pregnant.
It was the early days of COVID, but luckily Ben and I had a community that was determined to care for us, even from a distance. My friend Anne, who’s Italian-Catholic, dropped off veggie lasagna. She said her mother lit a candle for us. We thanked her as we stood in the doorframe, keeping six feet apart. Ben’s high school classmates shipped deep dish pizza from Chicago, his hometown. Other friends left extra helpings of whatever they were having for dinner that night or texted food delivery gift codes. We were awash in soups and casseroles, savory comfort food abounded. Rarely did we receive desserts, except for chocolate chip cookies. Those were Ben’s favorite. I didn’t have much of a sweet tooth.
Then one evening there was a knock at the door, followed by a text from our friend Laura to check outside. She’d left a glass baking dish covered with foil on our doorstep. Under the foil: a large brownie. At least, that’s what it appeared to be. Its height was somewhere between a sheet cake and a candy bar, a mesa of dark cocoa. I would never have requested a brownie, but Laura is a private chef who often works with celebrities, creating meal plans for specific dietary needs. If anyone could make a dessert perfect for me, it would be Laura.
With the first bite, I knew I was right to trust her. The sweetness was subtle, not saccharine. Instead of refined sugar, Laura had used maple syrup. And despite its flat look, the brownie was soft and spongy. It had a rich, nutty taste, which I later learned came from swirling homemade Brazil nut butter into the batter. I requested another brownie delivery. And then another. Until eventually I asked her for the recipe. I swapped in store-bought peanut butter (because who else besides a chef is making homemade Brazil nut butter?). Before I poured the batter in the pan, I lined it with parchment paper. As the brownie baked, the edges of the parchment burned and the peanut butter toasted. The combination made my home smell like a Christmas carol: chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
The transformation began with that aroma. I’d smell the brownie baking and suddenly feel awake, like I’d snapped out of a deep sleep. I was otherwise aware of myself, but I wasn’t with myself. I was scared and anxious, emotionally still in the hospital room where my pregnancy had ended. My body was the locus for the worst experience of my life, and just like people avoid the locations where they’ve been hurt, I was terrified to fully return to my body.
My therapist gave me a technique to use whenever I felt panic arising. Look around the room and count the blue things. It was a way of orienting myself: I was safe now, despite all the alarm bells going off in my body warning me to run, get out of here, something terrible is about to happen! As I counted the blue things, I would calm, remembering no, something terrible has already happened. A small consolation, but at least one that grounded me in reality and took me out of my circling thoughts. Which is what Laura’s brownie did too. My senses took over. Warm, gooey, the rich flavor of earthy cacao. It was so delicious, it had to be savored.
Did a dessert cure my postpartum loss? No, a combination of therapy, hard work, and love from friends like Laura, my family, and Ben got me through the physical recovery and grief. But the brownie was important, the first hint that, despite everything, it was possible to feel pleasure again. When I stood in my kitchen, mixing the maple syrup, ghee, and peanut butter in a big glass bowl on my counter, it was the one time during those dark days when I could say with certainty: Something good is on the way.
Two years after that very bad summer, I was pregnant again. At 41 weeks I went to Labor and Delivery in the same hospital. When I returned home, Laura dropped off daily treats, but this time I consumed them in the middle of the night while breastfeeding, my newborn daughter’s plump cheek resting against my body.
I’d lost the taste for the brownie (maybe it served its purpose?) but happily lapped up Laura’s latest creation: a salty peanut butter oat pudding, supposedly helpful with lactation. I’m not sure it made a difference, but the treat did have an effect similar to the brownie. Eating it made me pause and notice the moment. The quiet, rhythmic suckling that babies do when feeding. The whir of the white noise machine that helped my daughter fall back asleep. The clinking of my spoon against the mason jar as I scraped up the very last bit of peanut butter. In that moment I could accept my loss. It happened. And then something else happened too.
Aisha Muharrar is the author of the novel ‘Loved One’ and an Emmy Award–winning writer and producer who has worked on shows like ‘Hacks,’ ‘Parks and Recreation,’ and ‘The Good Place.’
