Lust and passion

After the non-meeting at the weekend I told my daughter L that I needed a night of lust and passion, especially as I have not exerienced a night like that before. I wanted to know what it would be like and whether I was capable of a night like that. Well now I have had the experience and know the answer to my capability in that department of relationships.

I have just had the most amazing 25 hours with a man. The best time I have ever had. And no matter what happens from here, I will treasure the memories of those hours for ever. I had no idea how different this would be from any previous experience. I hoped it would be so from chats we had had over the last two weeks. yet I was not prepared for how wonderful it would be in reality.

I met D at the train station at 1pm. As the train came in I took a deep breath and thought here I go. As soon as D stepped off the train I knew it would all be well. He looked good and was smiling, while helping an elderly lady off the train. He came over to me and we hugged, kissed, and hugged again. It felt so natural, it was easy.

As it was raining, we walked to the hotel, each with an umbrella while chatting. The walk took 15 minutes. D booked in for the room and we had to wait for 10 minutes or so while housekeeping finished up. We sat on a love seat in the lobby and held hands and kissed. It was a romantic moment, the first of many. We took our bags up to the room on the third floor - all stairs. After stowing bags and things we decided the weather was dry enough to go across the meadows for a walk and a picnic. I had bought some crackers, cheese and grapes to eat.

Leaving

I have decided that I am not returning to Maine. I feel so at home here in England with my family close by that I want and need to remain here. I am freer and developing my own life here for the last 2 years.

After returning to Maine for 3 months, and then coming back I now know this is the right place for me to be. I loved living in Maine and have a lovely home there, as well as some good friends. Yet this last time I was fully aware of how much I wanted to be home in England.

Now I have a decision to make about my marriage. While in Maine for the 3 months I felt that L and I were like two old friends sharing a house. There was no hugging, kisses, touch. Just a quiet calm.

So the question is, do i leave both Maine and my husband? Or do I leave Maine only and continue in a marriage over here? My gut feeling is that I need to leave both. Now I ahve to do it.

I am in effect away from both now. So the leaving part is done and I am in control as to whether or not I fly back. What I can not control is how my husband will react or respond to my telling heim our marriage is over. Ideally for me, he will accept it and already know in his heart that this the case. If not, he may come over to see me and that would be the worst scenario. Time will tell.

I will not be writing on here tomorrow evening as I will probably be staying in a hotel in town with my friend from Dorset. That's another complication that has cropped up in the last couple of weeks, completely unexpectedly. More in 2 days time on that one!

Breast feeding

My daughter is breast-feeding her new baby, who is 1 week old today. Breast-feeding is protrayed as a bonding and wonderful experience. While this is true, there are aspects to breast-feeding, partucularly in the early weeks, that can be difficult and cause not so nice outcomes. Although these difficulties can be overcome, without good support from family, friends and midwives it can be easy to give up on the whole process and resort to bottles.

The baby had no trouble latching onto the breast and establishing a good sucking motion. Once the milk started coming in, my daughter found that she could feed the baby very well with her left breast. The right breast gave her a lot of pain and became extremely hard and sore to the touch. The nipple was sore and had a couple of blisters on the side. L became depressed over her difficulties with feeding and worried that she would not be able to give the baby enough milk from one breast only, and felt she was failing her baby if she gave up breast-feeding.

Fortunately, the midwife came round to do the foot print of the baby. L talked to her about her problems. The midwife was supportive and gave some excellent advice about massaging the breast to soften it up before expressing the milk with a breast pump. This is to be done each time the baby feeds on the other breast. Any milk can be either frozen or kept in the fridge. After a couple of days, L can try feeding on that breast and see how she gets on with it.

So far, it is working. L has expressed 3 small bottles of milk and has a much softer breast. A lot of the pain has subsided and she was talking about trying the baby on the brease this evening. She is also using nipple shields while feeding and they are helping the soreness and cracks in the nipples heal.

So all is tending towards a positive outcome after a few sessions of tears and lack of confidence in her ability to carry on.