- We made it to the 9th month!

- Baby girl is still as active as ever and measuring right on schedule

- My bellybutton is basically flat at this point. Nowhere to go but out from here.

- I'm done working at the restaurant now. I'm very thankful for the friends I've met along the way and the skills I learned. It was a long 8 and a half years and I didn't enjoy every minute of it but I'm very thankful for the job. I'm very much looking forward to working only one job now.

- We've completed our child birth class, night night newborn, and baby care basics class. Coming up later this week are infant CPR and breastfeeding classes.

- And our second attempt at maternity photos was a success. Very thankful for coworkers/friends who were able to find the perfect location and help us check this off the list.

And on a more serious note... It's no secret that we've had A LOT of trials in the past month. I'm not going to lie, I'm very overwhelmed with everything that's happened to us and the thought of having to bring home this new life that we're solely responsible for in the next 4 weeks. I keep praying that she is healthy and joyful and that she will hopefully be on time and not early because I need all the time to prep that I can get. But, I know it is God's will and not my own. I know that He will provide for us what we need if we just give up all of our doubts and worries to him.

So, here's the run down on the last month of our lives.

June 17: I was rear-ended on my way home from work. My car was totaled and we had to buy a new one. We were able to pay off what was left on my husband’s car and take out a loan for my new car. It’s a 2018, safer than my 2008. We reduced our monthly payments slightly and reduced our car insurance a little. The plan was to use our settlement check for my car to pay ourselves back for the money we put into the down payment and then put the rest into the loan right away. It took a long time for our settlement to get wrapped up but we're thankful that everything seemed to work out okay.

July 3: I notice that the AC isn’t working properly. Someone comes out on Friday to look at it. We changed the filter, added some refrigerant and we're told that should fix it.

July 8: I’m sitting at home by my self and hear a noise like a box has fallen over. I look around and don’t see anything. About 10 minutes later I hear what sounds like books falling off a shelf or box. I go upstairs to find a 5 foot square hole in our ceiling and water dripping out of it. We had to replace our entire AC unit in the house, which left us without AC for 11 days and cost us an unexpected amount (goodbye our settlement check) but we are very thankful to have AC in the house again. And equally grateful to our friends who loaned us a portable AC unit for the bedroom and helped us get the new unit installed in the midst of the very hot weekend heatwave. The ceiling is covered by our home owners insurance but will not be finished for another 4-6 weeks, most likely after the baby has arrived. The ceiling has been dried out and was cut open to about an 8 foot square hole now.

July 4: We go to the beach for the day. We come home and Angel tries to light a candle and realizes that he has no grip strength in his right (dominant) thumb and a pain in his forearm. We continue to ice it and massage it and brace it with no improvement.

July 19: He finally goes to the doctors and is referred to an orthopedic doctor.

July 25: He met with the orthopedic doctor and was told that it’s most likely that one of his nerves has “fallen asleep” and it could take up to a year for it to wake back up; I think he called it a brachial plexus injury. He has to go back in for a treatment where they put pins and needles all up his arm and test every nerve to find which one is the problem. This treatment could take 45 minutes to 2 hours.

Today (August 7): Angel had his doctor appointment and I had to sit there and watch them poke his arm from fingers to shoulder and shoot electricity through his muscles and nerves. I guess we'll see what they learned at the next doctor appointment.

August 4: Angel goes into the garage to take out our trash to find water spraying out of our water filter and the entire middle of the garage covered in water. Luckily we have an old area rug out there that seems to soak up a lot of the water. Next morning, we called to have someone come take a look at it and they recommended that the entire system leading water into our home get replaced. Luckily, they were able to do that all same day and we only went one night without water.

Yea, it's been a lot.

Today is also one year since our first child was removed from my body. He or she had only made it to 6 and a half weeks gestation before passing.

Today was an emotional day for all of us but it was made better when we were blessed by our work family with a baby shower luncheon where they all showered us with well wishes, books, and brunch!

Despite all of our trials, we know that our God is faithful and has everything in control. I can't wait to see how He plans for everything to work out.