When her 10-month-old son, Jace, came home after spending all day at ChildCare Discovery Center on May 7, she discovered nearly a dozen bite marks on his back. The harrowing discovery came when she took his onesie off so he could enjoy his messy dinner of Spaghetti-Os.

Seeing the 11 bite marks across Jace’s back, Lovely wanted answers and she wanted them fast.

It’s now been a week, and she still doesn’t have any answers.

When she called ChildCare Discovery Center after finding the bite marks, she was told she would have to wait until the following Monday for answers. Lovely was originally confident she’d find out exactly what happened to her son because she knew ChildCare Discovery Center, 2329 First Ave. S., had cameras.

Lovely said the factor that led her to choose ChildCare Discovery Center for her child’s day care was the camera system in the building. She said she was told by a receptionist that each room in the day care has a security camera recording and that she would be able to review any footage if an incident involving her son were to occur.

Now, she’s been told that the cameras don’t record, but just have a live-feed to an office where day care employees keep watch.

“Out of six people working there (in Jace’s room) that day, none of them know what happened to my son, which you can see why that’s really irritating,” Lovely said. “There were apparently four girls in the room and two that were in the office that periodically check the cameras and no one knows what happened.”

On May 8, Lovely took Jace to the emergency room to get his wounds checked out. Because she doesn’t have any information about what happened, they also did a chest X-ray to make sure he didn’t have any internal injuries.

ER staff helped Lovely make a report with the state Department of Human Services, which oversees day cares in Iowa. Lovely said she’s been told by the DHS caseworker that the agency’s report on the incident could take up to 20 days.

Lovely noted she also found blood on the back of the onesie Jace had been wearing when she took him to the day care that morning. She added that it wasn’t the same onesie he had been wearing when he was picked up — day care staff had said he had two “blow outs” in his diaper and needed to be cleaned up and his clothes changed.

“I just feel like it’s a big betrayal,” Lovely said. “I’m just emotionally exhausted over being upset about it all the time.”

Lovely had been taking Jace to ChildCare Discovery Center for the last eight months and nothing like this has ever happened before, she said.

“Usually they’re really good, he gets a scratch and I get an incident report,” she said. “But no, I’m still in the dark and it’s been a week.”

The Messenger reached out to ChildCare Discovery Center owner Tammy McNeil for comment and she replied by email.

“It is our policy not to publicly comment about any child that has attended ChildCare Discovery Center,” McNeil wrote. “I can assure you that the safety and well-being of the children we care for is our highest priority.”

With a week since her son came home covered in bite marks and no answers, Lovely said she has no choice but to imagine the worst and feels she can’t trust anybody but her own family to watch Jace now.

“(The day care) is paid to watch my son, so that means they weren’t watching my son or the other kid,” she said.

She said she’s not even going to consider taking Jace to any day care again until after he’s able to speak on his own.

“I just want to know what happened, period,” Lovely said. “I want there to be repercussions.”

She said there needs to be repercussions for whomever was supposed to be supervising Jace that day because she doesn’t want any other parent or child to go through something like this.

“I’m beyond mad,” she said. “I’m just hurt that my baby is hurt.”

Lovely said she’s spoken to McNeil about the incident, but hasn’t gotten anywhere with finding out what happened.

“She said, ‘I failed you, I failed Jace. We’re so sorry,'” Lovely said McNeil told her.