Panicked!

This morning we went to church and dropped Ella off in the church nursery as always. We go to Sunday school, then church and the workers change from the first shift to the second shift at that time. The workers in the first hour are so great and one in particular just loves Ella. Well, the past three Sundays when we have picked her up after church she has been so unhappy and just crying and I notice that the nursery workers are just sitting there with her in their lap, but not doing anything to try and get her to quite crying. (give her her pacifier, rub her, part her, stand up with her, all things anyone knows to do with a baby who is crying, but just sit there and do nothing!)

Well, back to this Sunday. We dropped her off and I thought I would go check on her between Sunday school and church. I went to her baby room and walked in and looked around for her. She was not in any ones lap, not in the swing, not in a crib. I ask one of the workers, "Where is Ella?" she doesn't know, she just looks at me. Then finally the second workers says "Oh, she was promoted to the other room." That is my first problem. You move my baby to a different room and you do not inform me? We have pagers that you get when you check your child in, couldn't you have paged me?????

So then, I walk into the second room. It is in utter chaos. There are two girls in there, neither older than 16, one baby is just creaming at the top of their lungs and one of the workers is having a breakdown saying "I just don't know what to do" and is frantically looking for something. They pay NO attention to me and so I look in the swings, the walkers, the crib finally I say very loudly "WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER. I AM LOOKING FOR MY BABY". A man sees me and hears me in the room, he says "Who is your daughter?" I say "Ella, she is wearing a hot pink dress". HE SAYS TO ME..."SOMEONE HAS ALREADY PICKED UP YOUR DAUGHTER." I immediately go into panic mode. What? My husband is right behind me. Who could have picked her up? Where is she??? He runs out of the room and runs down the hall, he sees an older lady and begins talking to her. Meanwhile, I am still in the room of utter chaos and am panicking. I walk out of the room and the older lady walks toward me and tells me her daughter took her out of the second room and took her to a third room. What? Why would you do this? If I drop her off in one room, she had better be in that room when I go to pick her up!! No one has permission to move my child but my husband or me. I go to the third room only to see my baby crying and has huge tears. I immediately take her away and leave, needless to say we did not go to church.

Talk about terrifying. When someone tells you someone has taken your baby and they can't find her your heart just drops. I didn't know what to do. I was terrified. Now in the past, before these last three weeks, I would have told you that our church nursery is AMAZING! They have computers you that scan your fingerprint to identify you when you check them in and they have pagers to notify you if something is wrong; however, today was the worst experience I have had. I am still shaken when I think about it. Tomorrow morning the Nursery director will be receiving a call from me.