Mom whose ‘ghost baby’ scare goes viral laughs that she was ‘relieved but embarrassed’ after finding out the truth

An Illinois mom was given quite the fright when she thought she saw a “baby ghost” in her son’s crib. But it was all laughs when she discovered what the alleged paranormal activity really was.

On Oct. 17, Maritza Dominguez of Naperville put her son Lincoln to sleep as she does every night.

When she got downstairs, however, she saw something strange in the baby monitor. Inside Lincoln’s crib was the face of another baby, she said.

Courtesy Maritza Dominguez

“I was trying to figure out what it could possibly be and I couldn’t stop staring it,” Dominguez told “GMA.” “I kept thinking maybe I’m making something out of something that’s not there.”

Dominguez texted her husband Corey, who was at work at the time, to get his input. He suggested maybe it was a drool pattern that looked strange on the baby monitors.

“We have a very drooly baby,” Dominguez said. “He’s like a St. Bernard.”

Courtesy Maritza Dominguez

Dominguez went in to try to investigate, but Lincoln had been sick and she didn’t want to wake him.

She then posted the picture in a mommy Facebook group she was a part of, asking if other people saw the ghost baby too because it was creeping her out.

“Some of the moms were joking that crib might be haunted and asked if I got it secondhand – which we did,” Dominguez said. “Thankfully my husband is rational and was helping me think more clearly.”

Dominguez decided that it was probably a stain and went to go to sleep, but said she kept opening her eyes every couple of seconds, waiting the mysterious baby face to move.

Courtesy Maritza Dominguez

“I had the monitor in front of my face all night and the brightness and volume all the way up,” Dominguez said. “Every time my son moved I’d be freaking out all over again.”

In the morning Dominguez went to investigate the situation after noticing that her phone was blowing up with notifications on her post from her mommy group.

“A lot of them were joking writing things like, ‘The ghost baby got her!’” Dominguez said. “There were so many comments that I couldn’t even read them all.”

She went up to Lincoln’s room to investigate and that’s when she saw the giant baby sticker on the mattress underneath Lincoln’s sheet. Dominguez said her husband forgot to put the mattress protector on the bed when he changed Lincoln’s sheets, so the face appeared more clearly without the extra layer.

Courtesy Maritza Dominguez

“I should have been relieved, but I was so embarrassed,” Dominguez said. “I was like ‘I can’t tell the ladies in my mom group this.’ But I felt like I owed it to them since they were with me on it since the beginning.”

Dominguez took a quick picture and sent the hilarious update to her mom Facebook group. The comments kept coming and several moms asked her to make the post public so they could share it.

She did and was amazed by how many people responded. To date, the post has been shared over 300,000 times on Facebook.

“I couldn’t even believe the response and couldn’t have imaged that it would spread so far beyond my friends,” Dominguez said.

She said she thinks her “lighthearted, silly parenting story” resonates with a lot of parents.

Another thing that may resonate with a lot of parents?

“It was my husband’s fault,” Dominguez joked. “I still blame my husband.”