15 THINGS YOU CAN DO WHILST BREASTFEEDING

PERSONAL

1. Call a friend or family member you haven't spoken to for a while.

2. Plan your weekly dinner menu.

3. Organise your diary.

4. Work on a negative or limiting belief you hold about yourself or your life. Take the time during breastfeeding to repeat a positive affirmation or hold a visualisation that addresses the belief.

5. Watch a box set you've always been meaning to get around to.

6. Think of a fun activity you can do with your older children once you finish breastfeeding to ensure quality time with them also.

BUSINESS

1. Brainstorm marketing ideas and different ways of promoting your business.

2. Call one person and introduce yourself and your business.

3. Think about complementary relationships you could try and initiate i.e. if you are a masseuse, you could team up with a therapist to run sessions together or promote one another.

4. Plan your tweets, or themes for tweets, for the week.

5. Review your business plan and see if you are on track, or need to alter it.

6. Read blog posts to keep up with other mums in the UK.

7. Surf your competitors sites and see what they are doing.

8. Brainstorm different upcoming blog topics so you always have something to write about.

And above all, stroke your baby's hair, love and enjoy them as before you know it they'll be grown up and you'll never have this time again x

9 DAYS OVERDUE AND CRYING, CRYING

So, as you know from my last post I started out this whole overdue process feeling very positive and proactive. I didn't, however, want to continue on projecting this message as I know there are probably a whole lot of mums out there feeling like me, who would like to know someone else feels the same. And I do. I feel stressed, strung out, pressured, tired and generally very, very down right about now.

Going overdue is a very exhausting process. 9 days overdue feels like about 9 years and every second is spent wondering when, every twinge is a possible sign of going into labour. On top of it all, my boyfriend didn't qualify for paternity and had to take holidays and every day the baby doesn't come is another day he won't be around when bub finally does decide to enter the world.

Then pile on pain when I try and walk long distances and a three-year old that just wants to run and play, very sore skin that has had enough being stretched across my stomach and carrying around a bowling ball every day!

The icing on the cake was my visit to the midwife yesterday. If any of you have gone overdue, you know the appointment I'm talking about - where they try everything to scare you into booking in for induction. Upon my refusal of a sweep and induction, a consultant was called in to spell out to me how every day over 42 weeks I was basically taking my child's life in my hands and that even if I came in for constant monitoring there was no guarantee the baby wouldn't stop breathing an hour after.

There was no outline of the cons of induction, not even a mention of the pain involved or the possible outcomes of this process. When I told her my plan for handling my pregnancy after 42 weeks, every statement was met with a grimace as if I was making the wrong choices. When I asked her what other people did she said she didn't have any answers as if no one else ever chose this option!

Now I completely understand that she needs to make me aware of the risks of going over 42 weeks but the way this appointment was handled made me feel as if there was even more pressure on me now. Every second I don't give birth brings me closer to 42 weeks and the point where I am making the decision to endanger my childs life or not. It is a very tough time and you have to be very strong in yourself to resist all that is going on around you when you feel in your heart you need to give your child the time it wants to be born.

So that's where I'm at now. Watching the seconds continue to tick by with no signs of labour, crying often and fighting every minute to maintain faith in myself and my choices. And in the end I know it will all work out...it's just getting there.