WORKING AS A COORDINATOR MIDWIFE IN A TERTIARY ...

talk with her colleagues, share opinions and reach decisions regarding optimum care for a
woman. Having time to utilise their working partnership enabled them to make
contingency plans and offered the best possible decision making for the woman’s
wellbeing. Harman (2007) writes about time and temporality whereby “life has a
structure of past present and future” (p.28). Jane and her colleagues were able to
simultaneously utilise the temporality of the woman, her colleagues and herself to reflect
on past events, on the current situation and plan for future eventualities with mutual
agreement achieved. Each of their roles and temporality were inextricably woven
together. Jane explains that the availability of lived time to achieve this outcome was a
luxury and not something that is the norm for her as a coordinator.
‘Thisly’ Time
In contrast with Jane’s stories of ‘having time’, Sally describes a story which reveals the
level of conscious thought that flows as she has to multi task ‘on the run’ with time
feeling as though it is ‘running away’ from her, and ‘this’ is how it was. She is alert, with
a level of readiness, not knowing what lies ahead amidst the absolute busyness where it
feels that subjective time and chronological time seem to clash and each contribute to the
stress of the experience. Harman (2007) describes life as “thisly” which evokes a sense of
the present as something that is felt, but just a fleeting moment which is enmeshed in all
its possibilities as we live it, with time forever flowing onwards (p.28):
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