Unaware

The day following my daughter’s c-section I found my self itching to begin moving and walking to start down the path of recovery so I could go home with my new baby girl. I took my first walk about 12 hours after surgery, from the bed to the bathroom. Not that impressive. An hour later I walked to the nurse’s station and back. By the next morning I was doing laps around the postpartum wing and itching to go further, specifically to the children’s wing to see the incredible wall murals that I had heard so much about from the nurses. Late in the afternoon, the day after surgery, I began to get restless and decided to venture beyond the postpartum wing, with my husband and baby in tow (in a rolling bassinet per the nurses). We walked and talked, stopping only long enough to allow me to catch my breath and breathe through post labor pains. Thinking back I vaguely remember this odd clicking sound every time we walked past the hallway from the postpartum wing to the children’s wing and by the third time we had passed the foyer it occurred to me how strange it was that I heard the clicking at the same place over and over again. I mentioned it to my husband and he said it sounded like the door to the stairwell wasn’t sealed very well and was creaking from the change in pressure between wings as we opened doors. I never gave it another thought.

Later that night as we walked around the children’s wing we decided to venture further into the hospital into the labor and delivery wing and as we wheeled my daughter down the hallway I began to notice the clicking sound more and more until suddenly a woman came bursting out of a room behind us and yelled, “STOP RIGHT THERE!”. My husband and I froze, turned to see the woman and she rushed towards us barking, “What is your name? Let me see your id bracelet!” I held out my wrist, puzzled and she immediately grabbed my daughter and unwrapped her revealing a large ankle bracelet with a sensor on it and held it up to my bracelet to compare. We looked at her with complete confusion as she wrapped the baby back up and ordered me to return to my room. I asked her if something was wrong and she told me that we had been setting off alarms all over the hospital and they couldn’t figure out who was “stealing” my baby. You see, apparently that itsy bitsy little sensor on my daughters leg was SHUTTING DOWN ELEVATORS, locking stairwell exits and setting off a blaring alarm in the infant nursery. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, I was not allowed to leave the postpartum wing with my daughter until discharge. Oops.

I think sometimes we aren’t aware of the ways in which others see us, whether or not their interpretation of our behavior is accurate. As I reflect back on the work that our leadership team (elders and ministers) has been doing in the past few weeks I find myself wondering what the congregation sees in our leadership team. What can we learn from their observations of us as a team? How accurate are their observations? What role are we playing in accuracy of those observations?