This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

Our Mindful Bookbinding course began on February 1st for paid subscribers too - you can read more about it here, it’s a beautiful course designed to support you in your mental wellbeing whilst showing you how to hand sew your own 2024 journal.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Welcome to your mindful bookbinding course!

If you missed the post introducing this you can find it here. This is the first of eight seasonal workbooks & tutorials which will be released according to the Celtic wheel of the year. We’re here to begin the year-long process of making and creating journal pages and learning how to hand sew them into a keepsake book.

Your 2024 beautifully wrapped up in cotton to remember always.

This process is specially created as a thank you to my paid subscribers. Each of the posts will include a workbook, filled with journal prompts and activities and also a video tutorial to guide you through making your own book. You can manage your subscription and support my writing here, as well as all of the free-to-access support we provide at The Women’s Health Hub via this button:

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

Our Mindful Bookbinding course begins on February 1st for paid subscribers too - you can read more about it here, it’s a beautiful course designed to support you in your mental wellbeing whilst showing you how to hand sew your own 2024 journal.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

I am SO excited to bring this offering to Substack, as an extra magical gift to my paid subscribers1. Your paid subscription is an important income stream for the non-profit and supports all of the amazing work we do here and at our community space, The Women’s Health Hub and I am so grateful. This year-long experience of Mindful Bookbinding is my way of saying a huge thank you (whilst hopefully encouraging more of you to join us over the pay wall?).

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I firstly want to stress that this is not a professional bookbinding course and I am not a professional bookbinder. I have learnt most of what I know from the wonderful who teaches bookbinding through her amazing online courses & membership which you can find here. No, I am not coming at this to specifically teach you how to make the perfect book, rather I am using the bookbinding process as an invitation to slow down, to take stock of the day to day, to ground ourselves in gratitude and to connect to one another in the process.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

This is your monthly catch-up email showcasing everything that is coming up for Postpartum Matters CIC and The Women’s Health Hub in the month ahead. If you are passionate about our work, or if you want to keep up to date with events, do consider subscribing below.

Subscribe now

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund our writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide weekly at The Women’s Health Hub.

We are so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

This is your monthly catch-up email showcasing everything that is coming up for Postpartum Matters CIC and The Women’s Health Hub in the month ahead. If you are passionate about our work, or if you want to keep up to date with events, do consider subscribing below.

Subscribe now

Hi friends,

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund our writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide weekly at The Women’s Health Hub.

We are so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

Hi Friends,

This is a quick reminder that our community connection circle is this Friday, October 27th. We start at 6:30 but feel free to arrive late, to pop in and out, to be half way through putting the kids to bed. We’re here for all of it, and it is all welcome.

This is a new feature which will usually just be for paid subscribers but I’m opening it up to everyone this month so you can see what it’s all about and if it’s for you.

Subscribe now

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund our writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide weekly at The Women’s Health Hub.

We are so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund our writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide weekly at The Women’s Health Hub.

We are so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

Hello loves,

I have been reflecting this week on how much things have settled down for us over the last few weeks. With the news of the funding, I feel like there’s been an inner shift in me, in my energy, in how much I feel like I have to show up. I guess, before this, all of my energy was going into setting up The Women’s Health Hub and every ounce of energy, inspiration and focus needed to be used to try and make the money side of things add up. Now that is being held for the next 12 months by the National Lottery, I feel like I have flexibility again - room to play - and I’m really loving it.

We moved our mailing list over to Substack back in May, when we were in that place of needing to make as much money as possible. How it all works financially is a whole other post - and we still do need and are grateful for your financial support in the long run - but I feel as though I’ve struggled to know what to offer up to paid subscribers. How to make it worth your while.

We tried putting content behind a paywall and honestly, that was a bit ick. Not just because we’re still finding our feet and our voice here but also because how do you decide what is paid for and what is free content? There are many people on Substack who seem to make this decision effortlessly and I’m not sure if this is my autistic brain not knowing where the lines are, but it has never felt easy. So, for the last little while, everything we have put out there is free. But we still need to encourage you to pay us money1.

Hello my loves,

I hope you’re doing okay and finding your feet with the changing seasons.

This post will be the first of a series which will go out once a month. It is a re-envisioned newsletter, carried over from the pre-Substack days where I ran The Postpartum Village.

The Postpartum Village was an online membership. I would check in with members once a fortnight, sharing a topic or a prompt along with my personal reflections and an invitation to share and connect over on WhatsApp. It was an awful lot of work and something I struggled to keep on top of after opening The Women’s Health Hub but it was also really beautiful and I’d love to build something similar - albeit more sustainable - over here.

I wrote the below words at the beginning of last week, following yet another rejection for funding for The Women’s Health Hub. I didn’t have the time to polish it up into a readable newsletter and, since then, we have actually received news that we’ve been accepted by the National Lottery Community Fund for £10,000 to help toward running costs for the next year. This is so amazing and so unbelievable that actually rang them to check it wasn’t a scam.

For the last 6 months we’ve been working away, trying so hard (and failing) to cover costs for the space whilst also trying to secure funding. News of the funding has been such a huge weight off of my shoulders and I’m so excited to plan what we can do with that money. Whilst a big chunk of it will go towards the rent, it’s the little things we’ve not been able to have that I can’t wait for. A dedicated vacuum cleaner so we don’t have to lug down our personal ones, a sign for the outside of the building so more people know where we are. That’s how much we’ve been prioritising funds in the start up phase and it feels nice to be able to breathe past that now.

Whilst we have been offered funding now, I have chosen not to edit out the words I wrote last week, in the face of a £500 rejection because they feel real and raw and truly represent the rollercoaster it’s been for us to get this up and off the ground.

Just last weekend I was sat in a field next to a forest, reading a beautiful book by one of my favourite authors. I’m not sure if I can officially say this, as I’ve only read one other of her books, but it was magical (officially magical realism, and my first of that genre), and it led me to buy three more of her books (thank you charity shops)! My friend introduced me to her a year or so ago, although she currently reads them in Isabel’s native language. I read the translated versions, but one thing I did learn was how to pronounce her beautiful name, which is well worth asking a Spanish-speaker to say out loud for you!

I kept having to stop, re-read paragraphs, and fold over the pages. I’m just going to take a moment to acknowledge this controversial statement - it’s taken a long time for me to be OK with folding pages… my justification is at least I’m not writing in it – I jest, I have many text books with writing in! You can also ask Zoe about my fear of cutting up books, especially ones with sheet music in. But please do share any strong thoughts you may have on defacing, I mean annotating, books below!

Hi friends,

Happy 1st of September!

Whilst autumn is my favourite season, I am definitely struggling to accept that we’ve reached it already. Summer feels like it has been brief and I have this sense that I haven’t fully made the most of it. This was the inspiration behind our theme for creative journaling at The Women’s Health Hub yesterday and I wanted to share it with you here.

Guys, I’m going to level with you - this was not the post I thought I’d be sending you today. But, honestly, the countdown to back to school is getting me, I can feel the beginnings of a cold forming as my body feels heavy and tired and I’m just not sure I have what I’d need to complete my initial newsletter plan!

How are you all holding up there? Are you excited about back to school? Or slightly nervous? I’d love to support one another in the comments section - I could do with some cheerleading!

Leave a comment

I think it’s a mix of executive dysfunction making it hard to know if I have everything we need before the start of term but also just the general fear of the transition back and the knowledge of how hard we found school last year. It’s a lot.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Subscribe now

This may or may not be a long one... best pop the kettle on, grab some snacks and make yourselves comfortable just in case!

I’m sat in the Women’s Health Hub with a sleeping baby and pondering how we raise awareness of the support we have available here at the Hub, and most importantly how we ensure that people are able to access it.

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I first became a mother was finding places to get good support, particularly with breastfeeding (I have discussed this in a previous post here), but the next challenge was finding people that understood what I was going through. I still find this second part quite hard if I’m honest – I sometimes jump too fast into being far too open about the complexities of life, rather than going gently through the introductory conversations. There’s a lot of talk on social media right now about being too much and I feel that quite strongly. Too much and not quite the right stuff... needing clarity and openness, but also needing there to be compassion and empathy at the heart of it all. And plenty of room for both grace and understanding.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Hi friends,

Happy August!

How are you doing? This is my monthly update, free for everyone to read & chat on so I’d love to hear from you in the comments. Fostering connection and community is a big part of why I like to show up on the internet and I think Substack is a particularly good place for it.

Leave a comment

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Hello friends,

How was your weekend? How is your summer going?

Let us know in the comments, should you wish - we’d love to hear from you.

Leave a comment

It all started with my own cervical screening appointment – I’m one of those who has a tendency to procrastinate about almost everything, except certain aspects of my health… maybe it’s my Pharmacy training or maybe it’s because I’m from the Jade Goody generation, but I received my letter and got it booked within a week. 

Did you know that all people with a cervix aged 25 to 64 years are eligible for NHS cervical screening? 

All those between 25 and 49 years of age should be invited every three years, and those between 50 to 64 years will be invited every five years.  Those aged 65 and over will also be invited if they have had a recent abnormal test, and they should be encouraged to request screening if they haven’t had any since they were 50 years of age.

Hi guys,

How are you doing?

Like, how are you doing really? I’d love to know - you can always contact me by email or drop into the comments below

Leave a comment

I’m planning on doing a whole ‘origin story’/ how Postpartum Matters CIC came to be series shortly but, for today, as I was wanting to introduce our newest facilitator at The Women’s Health Hub - I thought I’d start with what I see as our (or should I say my) pre-origin story of sorts.

As with most people nowadays, I think it really began back at the beginning of 2020 as I found myself eleven weeks pregnant in a pandemic. I was working full time in a Microbiology lab, struggling with hyperemesis gravidarum, an extreme kind of pregnancy sickness. To say it was terrifying would be an understatement and I regularly felt as if I was a character in some sort of post-apocalyptic film.

27th March 2020 - our dating or 12 week scan, where I found out I had to go by myself via social media, not the hospital

Hi team,

Hope your week is going well! We’re popping into your inbox this week to share with you the impact and reach we have had through The Women’s Health Hub throughout the first month or so of its being. We are hoping to build up our funding and make The Hub sustainable long term, so this new section aims to highlight the impact we are having in the community and all the ways we are learning and growing!

This is a reader supported newsletter. If you are able, please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. Your support helps fund my writing here but also all of the free-to-access support we provide daily at The Women’s Health Hub.

You can also make a one off payment of support here.

I am so hugely grateful to you for being here.

Hi love,

This is a new section of our substack entitled ‘Doula Diaries’.

So many people don’t know about doulas until after a negative experience - at which point they may wish they’d had one, but it is sadly too late (I may be talking about myself here). Maybe they are unsure as to what a doula does or how they can support them & what their scope of practice is.

find my current doula work here

Hello,

Welcome to our new home over at Substack!

Let us show you around…

You can continue to view this newsletter in your email browser or you can choose to move over to the app and get all of the amazing benefits there.

Hi love,

How are you? How has May been for you?

I am writing this in advance, at the start of the half term and, honestly, I’m feeling pretty worn down. It’s been a busy month and I’m feeling it.

May in a snapshot

This is the new newsletter & online space for Postpartum Matters CIC & The Women’s Health Hub Hartlepool.

Make sure to check out our free & paid tiers and subscribe to keep up to date with everything that is going on, how you can receive support & how you can support us.

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