End of the Road

Raul came back to the clinic Wednesday afternoon! Unfortunately, I had taken the afternoon off and could not be there to greet him; instead, I was sleeping in between suffering from the "plague" (the stomach virus that others had gotten). But on Thursday and Friday, I spent a lot of time with my little buddy. I had resigned myself to not seeing him before I left, but when he returned, I was so happy because he looked great and had his wonderfully happy disposition back. So it was nice to know I'd be leaving with my last memories of him being happy and smiling, rather than him being miserable and sad. And he is SO CLOSE to rolling over completely! There was talk on Friday of moving a bigger crib into his room because he was getting too big for the other one, so I bet he'll be on his belly as soon as they switch.

So that's my biggest update regarding the kids. Also, Nicoletta was up to 9.7 pounds as of Friday afternoon.

After dinner, the other volunteers and I returned to the clinic for our final goodbyes. I held Nicoletta for a bit, gave the other kids kisses, and then I went in to see Raul, as I knew my goodbye to him would be the hardest. And you know what? The silly boy was asleep! I didn't want to wake him, so I just patted his belly, told him "I love you," and left.

My flight home was uneventful. The flights and layovers went by fairly quickly, and the only delay occurred in Pittsburgh, when we had to wait about 20 minutes for my luggage.