How to import FBX with many meshes attached as children to main rigged mesh.

In blender 2.8 I am trying to export a FBX of an animation I made of a tree swaying in the wind. I created the leaves with hair particles and converted to a mesh. Then parented them to the trunk of the tree that has the animation and rig. Hitting play in blender shows the leaves swaying now along with the trunk. Joining them normally to one mesh object makes the leaves not take on the animation. Anyways, I export and then import the FBX in unreal and I only see the trunk of the tree with its animations. The children leaves are missing from the FBX. There are 500 individual leaf meshes so rigging them all and weight painting them isn’t really feasible unless I parent them all to the trunk. I hope this makes sense. Thank you