Pregnant lady at work

Congratulations — you have cleared the first stage

If you are past 12 weeks of pregnancy, let me congratulate you. You have finished primary school. You get to go on to the next round.

Working while pregnant

I came across a piece in Forbes about mothers-to-be who have to keep working right through pregnancy. Instead of greeting you the ordinary way — hello, have you eaten, how are you doing — people greet you with that very Thai brand of concern: your bump is so small, your bump is enormous, that bump is pointy, it must be a boy (er… I scanned mine, there is no willy in there). And so on. Sound familiar?

The woman who wrote it runs her own business — and she calls her own identity a Badass Feminist Business Owner, which, honestly, I adore — and she offers three ways to handle the tug-of-war between the sharp, capable boss lady and the exhaustion of a mum-to-be in her final weeks.

1. #Accept that the badass boss and the exhausted mum both live inside you

And that is perfectly all right. Take a step back and let yourself get used to the idea.

2. #Take a break during the day

Think of yourself as a koala. Have you ever watched one? That adorable creature spends 90% of its life asleep and the other 10% eating. (Er… you do not have to sleep quite that much.)

You may be thinking: there is a mountain of work, how on earth am I supposed to rest, doctor, do not even start. But the exhausted body of a mother-to-be is desperate for a rest — and you are not going to win that fight.

So take a short nap in the middle of the day. The company is not going to go under because you had a warm glass of milk and an afternoon nap. Right?

3. #Cut back on the workload

Decide which goals you simply are not going to manage, because maternity leave will get there first.

Say your due date is February next year, and there are still 10 projects to close out in the first quarter of this fiscal year (hmm, am I talking about my own life here?). Then do not start all of them. Take on only what you can genuinely finish before you go off to give birth. Because once you are on maternity leave, nobody is going to carry them on for you anyway. Targets are not always there to be charged at head-on.