Being a parent comes with its fair share of worry and fear. It’s all too common to feel a little panic the first time your little one falls, bumps their head, or tries to eat something they shouldn’t, and rightly so — it’s terrifying to think about your little one getting hurt.
It gets easier after your first (or so I’m told) but worrying is always just part of the territory.
When mom-of-two Darian Depreta was playing with her daughter, Bella, and noticed something strange in Bella’s mouth, she was immediately concerned about her baby girl’s health.
Bella had an unusually large, circular, brown spot tucked up into the roof of her mouth. First, Depreta tried to wipe it off. But when it didn’t move, she took Bella to the doctor.
They met with a nurse practitioner. She couldn’t determine what the mark was or what caused it, so she consulted with other doctors on staff.
Depreta was told that it was likely a birthmark and Bella would need to see a specialist — actually, two specialists.
This was not an acceptable response to Depreta.
“I’m now being told that my daughter will be set up with 2 specialists,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
Depreta was firm in her insistence that the spot was not a birthmark. So the NP took a second look at the roof of Bella’s mouth.
“I point out it looks a little white on the side and she really gets in there trying to scrape it,” Darian wrote.
That’s when the mystery of the spot was solved: Bella had a piece of cardboard stuck to the roof of her mouth!
I
I can never show my face in that office again. I cried/laughed for a solid 5 minutes straight,” she wrote.
Turns out, Bella had been chewing on a cardboard box briefly before mom snatched it away from her. Although Depreta had checked her mouth for small pieces, apparently one had gotten stuck up in there.
She was a super-relieved mama after finding out it was cardboard and not some crazy infection — but she also felt a mix of emotions. And, of course, some readers of her post were quick to judge her.