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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Our Story

Our Story: Part 4, The Tumor Miracle

April 28, 2011 by Gindi 1 Comment

I closed Part 3 by saying we were done with treatments but promised our specialist we would come in for a final closing visit.  At that appointment in the summer of 2008, he suggested I undergo a procedure that would look more closely for endometriosis than the ultrasounds had before (there was no indication in my ultrasound over a year ago that I had anything to worry about).  This would require anaesthesia, but it would be an outpatient procedure so I could return home that evening.  He said that was the only thing left he could think to try since we’d undergone all the other testing.  I was hesitant, I mean we had already decided we were done, why would I want to take the risk of being under general anesthesia?  Bray and I talked about it, and finally agreed to do this one LAST thing.  I scheduled it for the end of October because I wanted to travel with Bray to Nashville for my 10 year law school reunion first. 

All our families knew was that we had not been successful with fertility treatments and we’d decided to stop them.  I really did not want to tell anyone about the procedure, but at the last minute I told my mom just in case something happened.  On the morning of October 29th, Bray drove me to the hospital for the early morning preparations.  I remember telling him that once they were in there, Dr. C might call him and ask for permission to cut me open if they found something (they were only doing two small laser inserts on either side of my uterus, no cutting).  I told him that he could agree to anything they asked for except removing my uterus – I did not want him holding the weight of that decision should it come to that.  This was very unexpected information for him, he didn’t realize the procedure could turn into more, but Dr. C forewarned us that morning “just in case.” 

Instead of waking up an hour later, I woke up several hours later in post-op recovery.  Bray and my mom were there.  Apparently, shortly after the procedure began, a nurse came in with a telephone and called Bray’s name.  Dr. C was on the other line and informed him they had found a tumor in the wall of my uterus and he needed permission to cut me open so he could cut the tumor out.  Needless to say (from all accounts I hear – obviously I wasn’t there), Bray was very upset and called his mom to update her on what was unfolding.  Who wants to hear two years into your marriage that your spouse has a tumor?

So Bray began telling me, in my groggy state, what had happened.  “They found endometriosis, but they also found a tumor.  They had to cut you open to get it out.  The doctor believes it’s benign but has sent it off to the lab.  You’ll have to stay in the hospital a few days to recover….”  Something along those lines, I still can’t remember much of that day. 

In the midst of all the pain as the day wore on, I do remember this.  I remember having the most amazingly supportive loving husband in the room with me, sleeping on the hospital couch next to my bed that night.  And I remember Dr. C walking into my hospital room that afternoon to check on me and give me a full report: (1) The tumor was benign, (2) Had I gotten pregnant with the previous IVF attempts, the tumor would have grown rapidly because of the hormones and would have caused me to miscarry, (3) There was widespread endometriosis, they had been able to remove it all, (4) We’re going to do everything we can now to make sure you have a little pumpkin next Halloween. 

I would have lost the baby.  We don’t always know why God does what He does, but He knows best.  How much worse would my heartache have been had we gone through all that and then had one or two or more miscarriages?  I have people close to me that have endured that heartache, and I don’t know why I was spared, but I do thank God every day that I was.  So I began to heal.  And we began to discuss whether we might try one more time.

Filed Under: Our Story

Our Story: Part 3, The Dark Year

April 8, 2011 by Gindi 2 Comments

After a year full of failed IUIs, we had some serious conversations.  Apparently, our odds would go from 15% with the IUI round to 40% with an IVF round.  We had previously been uncertain about wanting to do something more invasive, particularly Bray, but faced with the prospect of no children, we were reconsidering.  After late night talks, lots of prayer, consulting with family and friends, we decided around the holidays to try a round of IVF.  That Christmas, surrounded by kids in the family, and a pregnant sister-in-law, was tough.  

I started meds at the beginning of 2008.  I continued to gain weight – partly from the medication and partly because of depression eating.  We planned a trip to the Hill Country, a long Valentine’s Day weekend, for the day that we were set to get our IVF results.  I’d been on bed rest for a week after the procedure.  Three embryos were transferred and according to the doctor they were perfect.  We had a 60% shot.  Shortly before heading out of town, we got the call, I wasn’t pregnant.  There was apparently some very small amount of the pregnancy hormone hCG (my hCG level was 2 – you have to be over 25 to be pregnant) which meant that they might have briefly attached, but I was not pregnant.  We were both crushed.  I was heartsick.  That trip ended up being a brilliant decision because the last thing we wanted to do was look around our big empty house and answer questions.  We called our parents, told them, and then just spent all weekend goofing off together and had fabulous time.  It still remains one of my favorite memories. 

Because there had been so many eggs, we had a number of frozen embryos which they could thaw for another transfer.  After recovering from the sadness of yet another negative pregnancy test, we settled on doing a transfer around the 4th of July so that I wouldn’t have to take as much time off work.  (I was spending a week on bed rest after the transfers.)  Our embryos didn’t thaw well.  The doctor said that happens to some couples.  They transferred four embryos in pretty pitiful shape and we were given optimistically a 20% chance.  A week later – another negative pregnancy test.  We were at the end of our rope.

I had gained almost forty pounds since my wedding day two years before.  I had never weighed this much in my life.  My girlfriend, who’d been going through the same thing, on about the same calendar, gave me the news that her frozen cycle had worked and she was pregnant with twins.  My sister in law had a new baby – her third.  Everyone I knew was pregnant.  I must have gotten a baby shower invitation every other week that summer.  I had to stop going.  Everything was painful.  I cried through the baby baptisms at the church.

We were going to stop.  I decided.  I had known too many couples that fertility treatments destroyed.  I had an amazing husband and a strong marriage and I wasn’t going to let these efforts submarine the gift God had given me.  We’d be cool Aunt Gindi & Uncle Bray.  I joined Weight Watchers and started losing weight.  We would be okay.  And then we went for our closing appointment with our fertility doctor……..

Filed Under: Our Story

Our Story: An Interlude

April 7, 2011 by Gindi 4 Comments

The picture I posted yesterday for Wordless Wednesday was this month’s Easter photo.  Bray and I just stare at that picture in amazement – at these beautiful wonderful children that we couldn’t have imagined.  When I left off in our story, at Part 2, we had endured three failed IUIs.  Before we started down the IVF path, my college roommate came for a visit.  She’s one of the most amazing people I know.  Despite all that life has thrown at her, and it has been unreal at times what she has endured, she has such a positive outlook on things and a strong resilient faith.  I don’t know if I would have been as strong in her shoes.

So this unbelievable person who’s been in my life since 1991 came for the weekend.  We had such a great time hanging out at my house and catching up.  I shared a lot of my struggle with her.  She said something that really stuck with me.  I had pulled up to the airport drop off and she said, I know this is hard.  But God has the exact perfect person that He’s going to bring into you and Bray’s lives.  Each month is a different egg and a different sperm and they would make a different baby.  Each month it’s a different person.  God is waiting because He already knows which egg and which sperm He needs to make the baby to bring into your family. 

This picture, this description, rooted in my soul.  It’s what I held onto in the months and years of disappointment to come.  I knew that God had a plan.  I fought it sometimes.  I struggled immeasurably.  I became depressed and faithless at times.  But I always heard her voice in my head.  God used her to tell me that the people He wanted to join our family just hadn’t arrived yet. 

As I looked at that picture last night, I still heard her voice.  And as I saw their little faces shining back at me I knew that these were the EXACT people that were supposed to be a part of our family.  These were the babies that God wanted me to have.  He designed them specifically for us.  And I couldn’t love them anymore.  And I couldn’t love Him anymore for making me wait for them.  They were worth every single heartache and disappointment that we suffered.  They are worth all of that and more.

Filed Under: Our Story

Our Story: Part 2, The Verdict

March 24, 2011 by Gindi 1 Comment

A wise friend told me, after I was married, to see a fertility specialist if I didn’t get pregnant within six months of trying.  She shared her story of trying for a couple of years with her husband before ever going to a specialist and then finding there was something seriously wrong. 

Because we were in our 30s when we got married, we started trying to get pregnant a few months after our wedding.  And promptly after six months of trying, we went to get checked out by a specialist, “just to make sure.”  Shortly after that appointment, we were asked to come back to meet with the doctor about the results.  We figured that wasn’t great news.  Turns out, there were some problems.  At the conclusion of the visit, we were given the verdict – “you have a 3 – 5% chance of ever getting pregnant on your own.”  Then we were given options – drugs, IUI, IVF, and an assortment of other alphabet run downs. 

It honestly had never occurred to us that we would be one of the millions of couples that struggled with getting pregnant.  We just assumed, like so many other happy newlyweds, that children would come. And children were a HUGE part of the picture we both had in our heads of our life together.  In fact, we really couldn’t imagine not being parents, we’d both wanted to be parents for a long time.  We relished our role as cool aunt and uncle, but we were ready for the next step.

We had some long talks.  I remember our walks through the neighborhood, a very family friendly one, trying to figure out what we should do, praying about what God would want us to do.  After some deliberation, we opted for the least invasive option only, the IUI,  before we would consider doing anything more significant.  The doctor said that gave us a 15% chance.  Not exactly the best odds in Vegas.  But I believed, and still believe, we serve a big God who can turn water into wine and raise Lazarus from the dead, so 15% isn’t anything – He’s used to working with 0% odds. 

So off we went.  Three rounds.  April 2007, May 2007 and October 2007.  Nothing.  I’ve never seen so many negative pregnancy tests and spent that much money on such disappointment.  I was heartbroken.  And starting to gain some weight.  And running through all these questions about my faith.

We were still happy.  Loving our life as a newlywed couple.  Traveling around the country.  Enjoying our freedom and discretionary income.  But waiting.  Waiting on a plus sign.

Filed Under: Our Story

Our Story: Part 1, The Courtship

March 8, 2011 by Gindi Leave a Comment

We officially met the week after Thanksgiving 2003 at a concert at a small hole-in-the-wall though apparently he’d seen me a few weeks before as I was getting ready to leave for Italy.  He was with his brother and I was with my bible study girlfriends.  His brother had dated one of my friends.  Our first conversation was about attorneys and drilling in Alaska’s ANWR.  I guess I shouldn’t call it a conversation, it was a debate.  We had some seriously different perspectives.  We started dating the next week.  Neither one of us was looking – we’d both broken off relationships the previous spring.  And yet, there we were.  Dating – a lot.  I was absolutely taken.  I can’t speak for him though we’re married now so I guess he was eventually  

I was in love with him before three months was up.  He took a little longer.  We were SO different.  I loved the city and museums and fine dining and he loved the ranch and cattle and hunting.  But he was amazing.  Handsome, funny, smart, great kisser, interesting, curious, thoughtful, HONEST.  I’d not had a lot of experience with honesty in men I’d known.  I trusted him completely. 

We had so much fun.  We fought some, but mainly over “big” issues to figure out whether this was IT or not.  We traveled.  I went to the farm and ranch with him.  He went to galas and fancy dinners with me.  And we did our own thing too.  We loved our jobs and our families and our friends so we had really full lives.  He proposed on Halloween 2005.  We were both still in full costume after returning to my place from a Halloween party when he got down on one knee.  The gorgeous center stone in the ring was his mother’s diamond from her original engagement ring (my father-in-law upsized it later).  He proposed on Saturday and I had a wedding date picked Monday.  Six months out.  Whirlwind planning.  Really happy times.

We had a beautiful morning wedding followed by a jazz brunch on May 6, 2006.  Everyone said they’d never seen a bride so happy – that I kept looking at everyone in the pews as I walked down the aisle & smiling & waving.  I was happy.  I was elated.  I was madly in love and couldn’t believe God’s grace at bringing this man into my life. 

Filed Under: Our Story

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