CHAINED to a desk with a phone in one hand and an overflowing cappuccino in the other, Annabel Cornish looks like any ordinary business woman to have made it in her field.

Doing ten-hour days and taking her work home with her after that, Annabel could be one of a growing army of women who put in the hard graft both at home and in the office to rise to the top.

The fact that she runs her own web design agency, Zebra Communications in Newcastle, with a target turnover of £500,000, and has two children, Lottie, four, and Trixie, two, - with another on the way in three months - may come as no surprise these days.

High-profile career mums such as banker Nicola Horlick and barrister Cherie Blair have set a precedent and it is becoming more and more common for women to live up to it.

A whole army of nannies, baby-sitters and nursery nurses help ease the burden for these well-paid women who rush between putting in a good ten-hour day at the office to putting their kids to bed last thing at night.

But do they feel they are doing both jobs well or are they on the point of burn-out?

Past research has shown some mums have found the juggling a strain and finally given up their office jobs to take on the full-time work of bringing up one or more children.

But what of the mums who continue to bear the strain of it all? Annabel can certainly speak up for this category of high-flying mum who manage to have it all and maintain the workload at work and home.

Annabel thinks her ability to juggle it all is can sometimes be a double-edged sword.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm achieving great things by doing both jobs and feel good about my life-balance but other times, I feel like I'm a rubbish mum and rubbish at work," says Annabel, 32, who runs her web company with co-owner and husband, Nick Collins, 41.

At six months pregnant, she is still doing the hours she would normally do at the office and you'd never guess from her lifestyle she was three months away from full-term.

But ironically, she says she has always been prone to being a workaholic and having children gives her life a balance.

"I used to spend too long at work but having children has changed that. Now there's a line I'll never cross because I have certain "absolute" responsibilities, like being their to put the girls to bed," she says.

She insists she has never let babies hold her back from a hectic career but at the same time, she feels the burden of the dual roles she plays sometimes.

"I think there's a lot of pressure on women with successful careers to try to have it all. There's a lot of pressure on us to juggle everything as celebrity mothers are doing and the media sometimes promotes it as something that is fairly easy to do."

She says there are some who judge those women who drop off the career ladder once they have children because their priorities shift. Annabel feels this is perhaps interpreted as a sign of weakness.

"Mums-to-be sometimes hold this idea themselves that they will return to work as soon as the baby is born and that nothing will change in their lives but it is only after the baby is born, they realise it affects your whole life and this little baby becomes the most important thing. Taking quite some time off needn't be an admission of failure at all, but some think it is."

While she took six months off when her first daughter was born, Annabel found herself working two days up until her second child, Trixie, was born and returned to work five days after having her because the business, which had only been on its feet for two-and-a-half years, needed her.

This time round, she is returning to work as soon as she is physically able - she'll give herself two to three days - so she can resume her pivotal role in the company.

While she sometimes feels she cannot be a mum and businesswoman to the best of her ability at all times, she knows she could never be a traditional full-time mother like her own was. And she does not feel she needed time after her daughters were born to bond with them.

"I felt an instant bond with both of my daughters when they were born and so I don't think I've missed out," she says.

Ultimately, she feels lucky she can run her own business as she feels it helps with the running of her family.

"It gives me a lot more fre edom at work and I know that if my children are ill, I can just down tools and go."