We've all heard of birthmarks appearing in some pretty random places from time to time. But inside a baby's mouth? That seems like a new one. Except that's exactly what doctors suspected when one mom took her baby in for an examination, after discovering a large brown spot on the roof of her mouth. What it really turned out to be, though, would leave them all stunned. (OK, also laughing uncontrollably.)
The baby's mom, Darian Depreta, took to Facebook on May 30 to explain how the whole thing went down.
It started innocently enough, when she noticed the large brown something on the roof of her daughter Bella's mouth. Try as she might, she could not wash it off, which instantly sent her into a panic wondering if it wasn't a stain but some sort of a growth.
A short while later, she found herself in the doctor's office, begging for answers.
"I get to the doctors and the nurse practitioner tried to wipe it, and said she had never seen anything like it," Depreta wrote in her post. "She decides to consult with the doctors and they suggest maybe a birthmark. I INSISTED it was not because I always look in her mouth and clean it."
It was at this point that doctors started talking about referring her to specialists (which likely sent her into even more of a panic.)
But after insisting that the brown spot wasn't a birthmark, that same nurse practitioner decided to take another look-see.
And it's a good thing she did.
You see, after Depreta noticed the edges around the brown spot were a little white, the nurse "really got in there" trying to scrape it.
And BINGO! That finally did it!
The brown spot suddenly sprang loose, separating from the roof of Bella's mouth long enough for the worried mom to figure out what it really was: a piece of cardboard from something Bella had been chewing on.
Needless to say, Depreta's mind was blown (along with everyone else who followed the story along on Facebook).
But she admits that it was also super embarrassing, when all was said and done.
"I can never show my face in that office again," she declared in her Facebook post. "I cried/laughed for a solid five minutes straight."
(Honestly, I don't blame her.)
Her post has since been shared more than 19,000 times by similarly shocked Facebook users. In that time, it's garnered a few snide remarks from people who chastised her for letting her baby chew on cardboard, but to those people, Depreta explained that no, she doesn't hand over cardboard to let her baby chew. But as teething babies tend to do, they'll chew on just about anything before you can rush over and take it away.
One thing's for sure: This could probably have happened to just about anyone. But man oh man, this is a story this mom will likely never forget.
