Trinity.Melinda.Adams: November 2010

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In honor of our precious daughter, since her passing, we do the "Angel Trinity Christmas" every December. Whether it's money donations or toy donations, we give 100% of the donations made to the precious children in the hospital. We will continue this tradition in hopes that Trinity's spirit of giving will touch sick kids and people in the community every year.

To participate in the "Angel Trinity Christmas", please email us at adamsfamily97@yahoo.com and we will add you to the updates. Thank you for keeping Trinity alive and remembered in your heart, especially when it comes to participating in this special tradition.

Love always,
Barrett and Melinda Adams
Proud parents to Angel Trinity

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Snoezlen Room Dedication (3rd Annual Angel Trinity Christmas)

Last year for the 3rd Annual Angel Trinity Christmas, we did a huge fundraiser to raise $6000 for The Children's Recovery Center (CRC). Once we reached our goal in March 2010, we gave CRC the money to start building a Snoezlen Room (a multisensory therapy room for the chronically ill kids).

CRC contacted me in October to inform me that they had finalized this amazing room! Saturday, November 20, 2010, CRC dedicated the Snoezlen Room to Trinity and threw a huge dedication party for us. Family and friends, along with CRC staff all joined us on this special day.

Hand painted door..."Angel Trinity's Snoezlen Room"

Mike (the "head honcho" of CRC) started the dedication

It's Official!

The room is beautiful!!! Lights, texture, & therapy music...all needed to help stimulate the beautiful CRC kids.

The crystal portrait of Trinity that we gave to CRC after she passed, is proudly displayed inside the beautiful snoezlen room.

The kids LOVED the room

My dad said a few words, and a beautiful prayer to dedicate this beautiful room to our angel baby, Trinity.

Both Marla and Marilyn were instrumental in designing & building the Snoezlen Room.

Tinkerbell came to celebrate with all of us

Jumper House & food were all provided by CRC to help celebrate.

My dear friend, Jen Kwapinski, made her amazing gourmet cupcakes.

It was a beautiful day, and so very emotional. To have Trinity remembered & honored in such a special way, means the world to me. The "Angel Trinity Snoezlen Room" will be an amazing therapy room for so many chronically ill kids for years to come. Thank you CRC for a beautiful day, a beautiful room, and a beautiful Tribute to Trinity. We love you!

Sunday, November 7, 2010

4th Annual Angel Trinity Christmas

Yes, it's that time of year again, can you believe it? This year I've been very busy being back in school full time. I didn't get a chance to get anything really big organized for our Annual Angel Trinity Christmas. We've decided to organize another toy drive for the kids in the hospital. We will be giving to the kids at the Children's Recovery Center. For those of you who haven't heard of the Children's Recovery Center, in short, it's a long term facility for chronically ill children. Trinity lived there for 14 months of her life...many kids live there for years and years. You can read more about the Children's Recovery Center if you go to their website www.pedisubacute.com
For those of you who would like to donate to this year's Angel Trinity Christmas, here's a list of toys they need there. All toys donated must be brand new and still in their packages.

Ideas for infants:
Crib mobiles, decor, floor gyms, wagons, etc.

Ideas for toddlers:
small scooters, activity tables, pop-up toys, learning toys, sensory/texture toys (ie. play-doh, sand/water tables), etc.

Ideas for older kids:
Scooters, puzzles, games, art easels, physical therapy type trampolines, walkie-talkies, etc.

Please keep in mind that most of these kids are stuck in beds and/or cribs due to their severe medical conditions. So any other toys that can pre-occupy them in their beds would be great too. (ie. Age appropriate DVD's, headphones w/cd players, books, age appropriate video games, etc). Brand new boy/girl clothing from infant to teen, would be a good gift to donate as well.

We will be collecting your donated items from now til Saturday December 18th. We will take all your donated gifts to the hospitalized kiddos that following week, just before christmas.

You can donate in several ways, purchase the toys yourself and bring them to our home, order the toys on-line and have them shipped to our home, send us gift cards to Targets, Walmarts, or Toys R Us, and we'll go purchase the toys, or you could send checks (payable to "Angel Trinity Christmas") and we'll go purchase the toys. If you plan to just donate a gift card or money, please keep in mind that we will need to go shopping, so try to send those earlier, rather than later. The holiday season gets very busy with shoppers, and local stores start running out of the needed items.

The Adams Family
242 Charles Avenue
Manteca, CA 95336

Contact us via comments on this blog or our email is adamsfamily97@yahoo.com, and spred the word. Get your families, co-workers, friends, neighbors, church, etc. involved. We love helping the beautiful children at the Children's Recovery Center, and we know Trinity loves watching us "Pay it forward" in her honor.

Thank you for doing what you can to help us every year to do something special in honor of Trinity. It means the world to us to have Trinity remembered in such special ways.

We love you baby girl...Our little angel in Heaven

Trinity's Story

Trinity was born at Stanford Children's Hospital (LPCH) with a severe heart defect called Hypo-plastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). This heart defect is fatal if it is not corrected by a 3-stage surgery process or a heart transplant. We chose the 3-stage surgery in hope for Trinity to survive.

At 36 hours old, Trinity was wheeled into the O.R. for her 1st open heart surgery. Right before surgery, we found out from Trinity's surgeon, Dr. Frank Hanley, that Trinity's small birth size changed her previously better odds of 80% chance, to a 20% chance of survival.

At 1 week old, Trinity went into Cardiac arrest. Dr. Pirooz and Dr. Pettigrew massaged her heart for close to 4 hours before she was put on the ECMO bypass machine (which lived for her for 5 days).

After 3 open heart surgeries, 3 cardiac arrests, numerous infections, numerous lung collapse episodes, 8 bronchoscopey's, 3 cardiac cathiderizations, 72 hour kidney failure, 3 failed attempts of getting her off the ventilator, tracheostomey surgery, gastric tube surgery, and 7 long emotional months of hard dedicated work from the staff in the hospital, Trinity was discharged on Sept. 9, 2002 and brought home for the first time in her short life. After being home for about 4 months, Dec. 31, 2002 Trinity went back into the PICU for 2 months fighting phenomnia. She was transfered to Children's Recovery Center (CRC) on March 4, 2003.

Sept. 9 2003, being 19 months old Trinity's lungs were strong enough to come off the ventilator. After having a trach for 22 months, May 6, 2004 Trinity's trach was taken out. After 14 months of living at CRC, Trinity was dischraged and brought home on Friday, May 14, 2004...exactly 27 month and 1 day old, and the "Healthiest" she's ever been.

As of June 2002, Trinity was the smallest surviving HLHS child that Dr. Hanley had ever done. In fact, he did not know of a smaller surviving HLHS child in the world. Trinity spent 3 1/2 years at home with us and just thrived. Her little life was filled with so much happiness and love.

At 5 1/2 years old, Trinity went through her 4th open heart surgery on Thursday August 30, 2007 at LPCH. Being unable to recover from open heart surgery, our precious Trinity Melinda Adams passed away on Sunday Sept. 16, 2007. Our hearts are broken and tears continue to fall. We are honored and saddened to have our precious daughter, Trinity Melinda Adams, be our beautiful guardian angel. Trinity we love you dearly, we miss you so much, and we will be re-united as we are a family Together Forever!