Traumatized our 2yr old toddler?

We have a 2.5-year-old who's been described as a "spirited child". She's not rambunctious and getting into mischief, but she's very intelligent and has enormous willpower to get what she wants. We've struggled with sleep for the entirety of her life, but she's very sweet and compassionate. She is very sensitive and happy much of the time.She has been enrolled in a pre-school for about three months and although she's fairly quiet, she does really well for her age. She doesn't seem to mind when we drop her off and is in good spirits when we pick her up. She also frequently gets dropped off at a daycare at the gym while my wife exercises. She doesn't have a problem with this either.However, recently, we went on a trip to see my parents. During the trip, we decided to go to church on Christmas eve. At this church, there is a daycare specifically for her age group. We dropped her off, probably too hastily without enough explanation. After the hour, we went back and although she didn't cry during the time there, she burst out in tears when she saw my wife. We asked if she had fun and she said no. Clearly it was a scary experience.After this event, she's been very clingy and yesterday when we dropper her off at the gym daycare, my wife had to be called back because she was crying for mommy. Also during the day, she constantly worries about where mommy is.My wife is really upset that this one event at the church traumatized her and she beats herself up (and me) that we left her there against her intuition. However, I have a different perspective on it. I think our toddler is going through an extra clingy phase that was perhaps kicked off by this event. I think this clinginess and anxiety is due to a phase caused by a newly evolved sense of danger. I've read up on this and many experts agree that all toddlers go through a phase. I don't think this bad daycare experience was the cause, just the tipping point.What do you think? Did we mess up? Is this something normal that would have inevitably come? Is this just a necessary step to help our toddler find her own boundaries? And most importantly, what do we do now? She's really nervous about any sort of daycare and with pre-school starting back up next week, we're worried she'll cry the entire time.Thanks in advance! via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2qjSEO7