Finn, Man of Many Poses!

Last week, Dena took Finn and Tucker to have pictures made. The session was mainly for Finn, but we got some great pictures of the two of them. Just like with Tucker's 2 year pictures, we used our friend Kelsey and her amazing Everlasting Moments Photography. She does a great job, so check out her website if you need some pictures!

Enjoy!

Baby Finn!

Finn's 1st minutes

Finley Thomas was born this morning at 2:44am. He weighed in at 8lbs 8oz and was 20.5" long. He is doing very well and eating like a champ. Dena is also doing really well. She is up and moving around, I'm very proud of her!

Finn's 1st morning

Finley in the afternoon

Tucker got to meet his little brother today and he seemed to like him, although I'm sure things will change when this weird baby comes to Tucker's home. 

We will probably get to go home sometime tomorrow, but I will update if something changes. In the meantime, we are at Medical City Hospital in Dallas.

Yes, Tuck, that is your little brother!

Giving sweet kisses

Tucker is holding his brother for the 1st time

 I have included some of the best pictures from today, enjoy!

newborn Tucker vs. newborn Finley, do they look alike?

 ~Trent

Spring Break

We had a great Spring Break!

YOU are invited!

Before I get into all of our family stuff, I want to share an opportunity that is coming up. I have been planning the first Whole Hearts Foundation event for Dallas for months. The time has finally arrived to put all of that planning into action. Our Whole Hearts "social" and fundraiser is this coming Sunday at 1pm at Medical City Children's Hospital. It will be a reception in the atrium of the hospital and it will feature an acoustic performance by Matt Hammitt (Bowen's dad). He and his wife, Sarah, founded Whole Hearts and they will be sharing their vision for the foundation. All money raised at the event will go to support a special project at Medical City and heart families in Dallas. You all are invited to join us at the event, just RSVP to info@wholehearts.org to let us know you are coming. I have attached a copy of the invitation so you can see it. 

Tucker knows his ABC's

So, for Spring Break we took a short trip to Oklahoma City. We took Tucker to the zoo, which he loved, we went to Bricktown, and we visited the Oklahoma City bombing memorial and museum. It was a great little trip and we had a lot of fun and made some memories. You can read a little more about it on Tucker's caringbridge site here: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/tuckerhamilton

Mommy, Tucker, and Daddy at "Pops" on Route 66

Can you tell he is ready to go to the zoo???

Tucker and his "pride"!

Tucker & Mommy having lunch at Leo's BBQ in OKC

The other big event for Spring Break was to get Finn's nursery ready. If you didn't know, the nursery was our guest room. It was painted the color of a Tiffany jewelry box and VERY feminine. This would not do for our new little man. We picked out some crib bedding after we found out it was a boy and it is red, white, and blue. The idea was to save the red and white stripes that were in the middle of the room and paint the Tiffany's blue to match the bedding.

I started priming the walls on Wednesday night and then moved on to the paint on Thursday. The top half of the room is light blue, almost like denim, and the bottom half is navy blue. I finished up on Friday afternoon, with some help from my mom and dad. There was only one mishap, a puddle of spilled navy blue paint in the middle of the beige, carpeted floor. After trying numerous things to clean the stain, I gave up and decided to up the stain with beige paint. It doesn't look great, but I think it will be okay until I can find someone who can patch the piece of carpet. See the before and after pictures below.

Before - "Tiffany's" room            After - Finn's room

It was a great Spring Break, not too busy, but not boring. Now comes the countdown to the end of school and the arrival of Finn. We are ready for the new little guy to get here and join our family.

Thanks, as always, for visiting and sharing our family journey with us.

God Bless,

~Trent

Surprise! It's a ...

We had a visit with Tucker's cardiologist, Dr. Thomas, today. As a heart parent, this is a very nerve-racking experience, especially when it has been 6 months since the last checkup. The good news is that Tucker's heart looked great and we are still on track to have his last surgery in Summer 2013. You can read more about Tucker's checkup on his site: http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/tuckerhamilton

The other bit of news we have is that, while we were at the cardiologist, we were given the opportunity to get a look at the new baby's heart. We were Dr. Thomas' last patient before lunch, so he had some extra time and asked us if we wanted to check on the baby's heart. Of course, we didn't hesitate or waste this opportunity, even though we have our next Perinatologist appointment next week and were scheduled for a fetal ultrasound then too.

Dr. Thomas took special care to look at each ventricle and all of the major vessels of the heart that were visible. He told us that he could only see about 60% of the things he needed to look at, but that all of those looked good. Specifically, the baby appears to have 2 normal sized ventricles and the aorta looked good too. This is such a relief because those are the two main parts of Tucker's defect, HLHS. He will look at the heart again next week more thoroughly and then we will go back for a final check sometime before 25 weeks, which we are currently at about 17 weeks.

I can't tell you how excited and blessed we are to have this news. We expected to check for these things next week, but we were beginning to get nervous about it. The one thing that was holding us back from being completely ecstatic about this baby was the fear of a repeat experience. It was actually quite emotional for us...Dena cried! We know that we can't be 100% sure of everything for a few more weeks, but we do feel better!

Finally, one of the other cardiologists asked us if we might want to check on the gender of the baby. Again, there was no hesitation...we certainly did! The baby was not in the best position to get a good look at the gender and the doctor is not an expert at determining gender, but she felt about 95% sure that the baby would be.

So for the news:

The bottom line for us is that we want a healthy baby. But, if we could pick which type of healthy baby, it would definitely be a girl. We have our little boy and we both felt like a girl would be a perfect fit. We already have a name picked out, we already have the guest room painted in a feminine color to become the nursery, and we think that Tucker will be a good big brother for a little sister!

This was a great day for our family! Tucker's heart looks amazing, the new baby's heart looks good, and we found out it would be a girl. We are blessed beyond measure! If we don't get anything at all for Christmas, this will be enough! Honestly, this news is the best present that we could have asked for, special thanks to Dr. Thomas for making this happen!

Thanks for stopping by and supporting our family! We hope that everyone has a great holiday and has an opportunity to love on your family. Remember that the reason we celebrate Christmas is because our God sent his only son to us, to die for our sins. It isn't about presents, food, or prosperity, it's about a tough situation that ended up saving our souls!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!!

~Trent

We're Having a Baby!

 Just a quick note to share the news that Tucker is going to be a big brother.

We have known for almost a month, but wanted to keep it a secret until we were closer to the safe zone. It has been really hard to not tell everyone, but we are glad that we waited. Dena had a obgyn appointment today and we got to see Baby Hamilton. Dena is 7 weeks & 3 days pregnant and the baby is exactly the right size and it's heart was beating strong at 162 bpm. The official due date is May 27, 2012, but we will probably schedule a delivery for the week before.

We made the decision to switch doctors for Dena this time around because Medical City is our hospital now and we needed a doctor that was there. We definitely don't want to take any chances with this baby. This is also why we will probably schedule the delivery a week early, we would have an hour drive if she went into labor unexpectedly. The new doctor, Dr. Diaz, is great! She made Dena very comfortable and she is really nice and easy going. We think we made a very good choice!

Probably the most common question that we have had so far is, "what are the chances that this baby will have a CHD?" CHDs occur in about 1 in 100 babies, HLHS occurs in about 1% of those babies. This baby will have about 1% higher risk of having a CHD, so a 2% chance. It is not very common to have multiple babies with CHDs, but it does happen. This is another reason why we will have this baby at Medical City. We will also have a very thorough fetal ultrasound at about 20 weeks to check on the baby's heart and other organs.

We are very excited, but also trying to be cautious. There is still a chance for miscarriage until about 9 weeks, but everything looked good today. Tucker doesn't understand yet, but he loves babies and will be excited...but probably jealous too!

We will keep you updated on Baby Hamilton's progress. We would appreciate prayer!

Thanks, as always, for visiting our page.

~Trent