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

Almost FINN-ished!

This past Sunday, Dena passed the 37 week mark in her pregnancy. Finn is almost ready to make his appearance. In fact, we thought he was going to come two weeks ago.

In case you didn't hear, Thursday, April 26th during our monthly grocery trip, Dena started having regular contractions. We called the doctor and she wanted us to come in to the hospital. They checked her out and found that she was dilated to 1cm and having real contractions, so they kept us there for a while for observation. After about 3 hours, she hadn't progressed any further and the contractions had slowed, so they sent us home.

Since then, she has had some more contractions, but nothing regular, and she hadn't really progressed much more. Yesterday, during the weekly OB check-up, they wanted to take another look at the baby with ultrasound just to get a better idea of his size. It was not a surprise to us to find out that he is going to be a big boy. At 37.5 weeks, he weighs between 8lbs 10 oz and 8lbs 14 oz. At his point in a pregnancy, a baby will gain about .5lbs per week, so if he goes until the due date, he will be at or over 10lbs. 

Dena's doctor discussed the option of an elective c-section, but we don't really like that idea unless it is an emergency. She also made sure we knew that she couldn't induce labor until 39 weeks, which is on May 20th. When they checked her, she is now dilated to between 2-3cm, which is good progress. The baby still hasn't dropped, but she expected Dena to be "favorable" by sometime next week.

All that being said, it seems like Finn is about finished up and ready to make his appearance. He has huge checks, big, wide feet, and seems like he is going to be another clone of me. Oh Joy! Dena and I are both ready for him to arrive and I actually think Tucker is warming to the idea too.

Dena is going to continue working until he gets here, secretly hoping that some kid will send her into labor. 

We would appreciate your prayers for continued health for Dena and Finn. Also, for a quick, safe delivery when he decides to come.

I will update if something changes.

~Trent

Surprise...AGAIN

Well, today we learned why cardiologists don't usually use their ultrasound machines to determine the gender of a baby.

Today we had our final appointment with the perinatologist, Dr. Weiss, who looks very closely at the baby to make sure that there is nothing wrong with any part of the baby. He, obviously, looked closely at the heart and he also looked at all of the other organs, appendages, etc. He also took some blood from Dena to run some tests on it.

The doctor said that everything looked great with the baby. There are the proper number of fingers, toes, ventricles, blood vessels, eyes, ears, etc. Everything looked perfectly normal and he said that there was no way that the baby had HLHS. WHAT A RELIEF!!! It doesn't appear that we will have any scary surprises this time and we are very thankful!

Profile of the new baby

After he had looked at all of the important stuff, the doctor asked us if we wanted to know the baby's gender. We told him that we did want him to confirm it for us, but that one of the cardiologists had told us last week that she was 95% sure that it was a girl. He replied, "I will be the judge of that and then I will text her and tease her if she was wrong!" So he began to move the baby around and then he said, "Well, I guess I have to text her." Dena said, "WHAT?" The doctor replied, "It's a boy!" Then Dena said, "But the cardiologist said that it was a girl!" So Dr. Weiss said, "Well, if this is a girl, then she has a weenie!" I nearly fell out of my chair laughing! Then the doctor showed us the visual evidence that the baby indeed is a boy.

It's a Boy!

After leaving Dr. Weiss' office, we met with Dr. Thomas, Tucker's cardiologist, to look again more closely at the heart. Last week when he looked, he couldn't see a number of the things that he needed to look at, but today he could see everything. The baby has 4 normal ventricles, a normal aorta, no evident septal defects, and normal blood flow in and around the heart. That is about as clear and normal as you can get at this stage of development. He actually even said that he was confident enough in what he saw today, that we probably don't need to come back for another look. What a blessing!

As I mentioned last week, we were hoping for a girl, but, above all, we want a healthy baby. I think that we both felt like it was a boy deep down. Regardless, Tucker will be a great big brother and we can't wait to watch them grow up and play together.

I do want to say that we have no hard feelings about this surprise! We knew that the cardiologist is not an expert at determining the gender of a baby. She told us that she was pretty sure (95%) that it was a girl, but that she couldn't guarantee it. The cardiologists use different wands for the ultrasound machine than OBGYN's use, they are designed to look at hearts, not at babies inside the womb. The cardiologist also isn't as skilled at manipulating the baby to get good shots of the parts.

Now the hard part will be changing our plans. We will have to repaint the baby's room, but we won't have to buy near as much stuff, since we still have all of Tucker's old clothes and toys. The hardest thing will be coming up with a name. We have had a girl's name picked out since before we got married, but we don't have any ideas for a boy's name. With Tucker, we saw the name and just knew that it was right, but I spent a while earlier tonight looking at boy's names and none of them really sounded right to me. Right now, the only two names that we even remotely like are Case and Reed, but we definitely are ready to stop looking yet.

We hope that nobody else had purchased anything for a baby girl yet. We did receive a few girl things at Christmas, but nothing big. We apologize for the change, but I can assure you that we were more surprised by today's events than anybody, except for maybe the cardiologist.

So, let's try this AGAIN...Surprise...It's a...

We hope that everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!

~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

Everything is Cooking

We hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Our week started out with a nerve wracking visit with the Perinatologist. For those that don't know, a perinatologist is a doctor who uses ultrasound to look at a fetus closely and take measurements to ensure that everything is going well with the pregnancy. We were more anxious than normal because of Tucker and because we saw a perinatologist twice with Tucker and she didn't catch his defect, even though she should have seen it.

Because of our previous experiences, we were not really sure what to think and very skeptical of any news that we received during our visit. The main difference for us was that this doctor came to us highly recommended by Dena's new ObGyn and by Dr. Thomas, Tucker's cardiologist. We thought that the doctor would be looking at the entire baby, but because of how early it is in the pregnancy, he could really only check for signs of Down's Syndrome. The good news is that there were no signs that the baby would have Down's Syndrome, they will confirm this with a blood test, results should be coming tomorrow. The "bad" news is that, while he did humor us and look at the heart, it was too early to see anything. We will have to wait until our next visit on January 2nd to look at the heart. Dr. Thomas should be at the next visit too, just to get a second set of eyes on the heart. We should also find out the gender of the baby on the 2nd too, so it will be a VERY big day!

The rest of the week was great! We spent a lot of time with my family and got to relax some. We also took Tucker to his first movie in a theater. We went to see "The Muppets" and Tucker had a pretty big time. He got his own popcorn, drink, and candy and got to sit in his own chair. He did okay, but got a little bored about 3/4 of the way through the movie. He love the songs and danced and clapped during the big finale!

Tucker at his first movie, The Muppets

Too much fun at the movies!

The other big thing on the horizon, besides the holidays, is that I'm about to start a new venture in life. As most of youI know, we are very involved in the CHD world as a result of our experiences with Tucker. For several months I have been working with Matt Hammitt, Bowen's dad, on the new Whole Hearts Foundation. I have been answering emails from new CHD parents, old CHD parents, families, friends, etc. I have also been in charge of the Whole Hearts facebook page. Whole Hearts will be teaming up with a new social network for CHD families, called Heartwaves.org. I have been asked to be a dad blogger for this new website. I am very excited about this opportunity. I hope that my experiences can help other dads and CHD families that are just starting this journey. I'm a little nervous about having enough to say and I will definitely have to improve upon my writing skills, but it should be fun! I will post information about my blog once we are up and running sometime in January. Right now, I've got to come up with a topic for my first blog entry, I feel writer's block already starting to creep in...oh no!

Tucker helping with the tree!

 I do have some more to say this week. Look for a post about our favorite group, Sanctus Real, and Tucker's love for their music!

As always, thanks for visiting and be sure to come back soon!

~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

Plus 1!

For those of you who know my family, you probably wonder how much bigger we can actually get...well, it seems like we get bigger every day!

Aunt Dena with Beckett

Beckett relaxing

Uncle Trent and Beckett

I told you a few months ago that my brother and sister-in-law were expecting a baby boy. That addition to our family arrived this past Wednesday, March 2nd. Beckett Hayden Hamilton came to us last week, weighing in at 9 lbs. 12 oz with a length of 20 in. We are all very excited about Beck and we are happy that mom and baby are doing great. Beck is a big boy and he likes to eat! As excited as we are, I don't think that anyone's happiness can compare to the big sister, Maddie!!! Amelia and Beckett were discharged from the hospital today and they are all at home tonight...hopefully getting some rest.

Proud big sister, Maddie, and Beckett

The Hamilton Men!

Beckett is following in daddy's footsteps!

We can't wait to go see Beckett again, but we have to get our little man well first. Tucker was sick all day yesterday and we took him to the doctor today. In addition to an upper-respiratory infection, he is dealing with the flu. Needless to say, he is not a happy camper right now and we are ready for a stretch of health for our family! You can read more about the crazy, sick last month for us at www.caringbridge.org/visit/tuckerhamilton.

Finally, I want to share with you about a new family that we have been connected to through our friendship with Matt Hammitt. I was introduced, through email, to Alexis and Vince about a month ago. They are a very young, married couple who just found out that they are expecting a daughter, Scarlet, who has HLHS. Because they are young and newly married, this is especially hard for them. I have been in contact with Alexis over the last few weeks and have been trying to show them love and support like we received. They live in Las Vegas, so it is difficult to help a whole lot, but we are trying to be there for them and answer any questions that they have. Alexis went for a check-up with the cardiologist this week and she received some difficult news. The doctor told her that part of Scarlet's hard is not letting enough blood get to her lungs and that she may not survive until birth. I know that God performs miracles every day and I would appreciate if you would begin praying for a miracle in Scarlet's life. I also know, that God has a perfect plan for this family and that it may mean that Scarlet doesn't survive. Please also pray that God will look after and bless this young family, especially if they have to deal with loss.

Thanks for visiting us, leave a comment to let us know that you were here!

~Trent

Add Another for the Hamiltons

We are so excited to announce that Dena and I are gaining a nephew and Tucker is getting another cousin.

We found out, in July, that my brother Greg and his wife Amelia were pregnant with their second child.  They went to the doctor yesterday and got the news that they would be having a bouncing baby boy.  Our niece, Maddie, is very excited and they let her announce the addition to everyone through a video posted to Facebook.

It will be awesome to have another member of our growing family.  It should also be interesting to see how much trouble Tucker and his cousin get into in the future.  Tucker probably won't need any help in this area and they are sure to keep us busy and entertained.

Trent