Happy birthday to me!

Today is my birthday - I am 32. It's been a pretty wild year! 31 was ahMAZZINGLY complicated and stressful and it feels like I'm at least 5 years older than I was last year.

I went to a breastfeeding conference yesterday and really got inspired to work harder on my business plan. The midwifery arm of it is ready to go - all I need now is clients and there are a few who are in the considering phase.

Today's present was that my business name is now registered nation-wide! I can now go ahead and contact the local council and see what they say about me starting a drop-in center for postnatal care.

Hard at work or hardly working?

Happy BIRTHDAY to me!

I had a lovely birthday and am working hard on the business. Plans are afoot to do more "business" stuff in the near future - a course in accounting, to access some coaching or mentoring, to get a professional website as well.

It's hard to get started and let it all grow organically but I'm getting there! Right now I'm going to go and enjoy my cake.

Some of my inspirations

I am a midwife and I wanted to share some of my inspirations!

Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond are a huge motivation to me - I totally want to be them when I grow up.

This video also really motivated me to be a homebirth midwife. Not because it's sassy or high paying or public but because it's HOME.

To do list

I like making lists so here's the one that I need to at the moment:

• Find a business coach
• Think about some advertising
• Buy a few more bits and pieces
• fetoscope
• pinnards
• birth pool
• pump for said birth pool
• Do a budget
• Register for a workshop in March

Number 2 on that list is a bit confronting. Am I afraid of success? Do I need to advertise? What do I say? I want to under promise and over deliver so no iron-clad guarantees but still, I need to make some kind of move to find clients.

Cause that's kind of important.

Down to Birth

The cat is well and truly out of the bag.

I have had a logo designed.

I wanted something that:

• looks a bit feminine, pregnant belly
• looks a bit tribal, pagan, organic
• is something like the goddess spirals that I've doodled all my life
• looks like the background image on this blog, which is like a Gustav Klimt drawing that I love, and it like the design I have tattooed on my left wrist.
• is spiral-y and curved, simple but complex, segemented but all in one - much like the journey to parenthood can be

Yellow is my favourite colour, and I love the aqua/teal/turquoise as well, so the colours are perfect.

I have picked a business name - Down to Birth.

I even went and bought a domain name. 

And it looks awesome in the black and white as well because the lines are filled in, rather than it being a graduation of colours.
 

So you can see my website at Down to Birth. 

 

What do you think, dear reader? Do you like it?

On moving and transitioning

Wow the past month(s) have flown by. I have achieved so much at the same time as seeing Christmas pass, the new year arrive, us buy a house / pack / move, and settle into a new town, a new job for me, a new childcare for my offspring, and lots of other things!

The new and exciting year I'm sure is part of the year of the Dragon. Last year sucked on so many levels and then suddenly with the waning of the year my life had a huge turn around.

My plans progress apace. I've used some of the funding from Map Your Future to purchase the first of my equipment for my new practice. It was so exciting to get a huge package from The Birthkit Company the other day and now it's sitting in my lounge looking at me. I'm waiting on the rest of the package to arrive though, and I need to organise a few other things for myself and then *deep breath* putting out that shingle.

In the meantime, I'm doing some logo design. It's a lot of fun and not something I know much about. I'm trying not to over analyse it though!

Business planning

Oooer things are on the move in my head at least. I read somewhere recently that being in business for oneself is about pinning down the hovering helicopters and not letting it consume my every thought.

Family Christmas Photo 2011

Now that I'm done at uni (for now?) I am relieved to have stopped feeling that feeling that there is Something More Urgent to do - OPMs as my public service self would have called them. Other pressing matters!

I've started doing some business planning to get my ideas out of my head and onto the page. It's pretty exciting! It's also pretty daunting and I am struggling to put my ideas down on paper.

Horses for courses

I do know that I want to do a few courses first, which is hard to juggle in my head with a small child. She is 21 months old, still breastfeeding regularly, and not overly keen on my being away for a long time, and one of them ones I want to do is a 5 day course. Interstate. What do you think dear reader? How do I juggle motherhood, burning desires for changing the world, and travel?