no its exporting an animated mesh so I'm getting all my pivots/joints, just not my child meshes,
Assuming you mean skeletal animation then indeed all bets are off. Ultimate Unwrap will only export skeletal animation for a single object, so perhaps Milkshape is the same way except that it combines everything into one object automatically.
Frankly, it would probably be better not to save the sword in the same file. Save it as a separate mesh, then find the right hand pivot and parent it to that pivot. Then not only do you have access to the mesh, you can actually swap it out for a different weapon, hide it, etc.