Melissa Surgecoff, 38, said early in the morning of March 8 she thought she was experiencing intense menstrual pains. As the day progressed and the ᴄʀᴀᴍᴘs got faster and more intense, she asked her fiancé, 37-year-old Donnie Campbell, to call 911 and report she was passing a kidney stone.
“The only relief I would get was sitting on the toilet,” she said. “So I was in the bathroom, and I … couldn’t sit still. I was screaming, I was trying not to be loud like I didn’t know what this was.”
She said finally at one point she felt something rush out of her.
“I look in the toilet and I still didn’t know what it was,” she said. “And I thought I basically lost an organ because I didn’t know!”
Surgecoff said she stood up and didn’t realize what was in the toilet bowl until her fiancé went to look.
“I’m screaming, I’m freaking out, I’m in shock,” she recalled. “I don’t know what’s going on, and Donnie went to the toilet, and he rescued the baby.”
She says she’s always had an irregular cycle, and in hindsight, she had gained a little weight and felt flutters that she thought were just gas.
But when it came to the weight gain, Surgecoff attributed it to something else.
“We thought it was medication because I had just changed to new multiple sclerosis medications and that was one of the symptoms, gaining weight,” she said.
The couple, from Peabody, Massachusetts, has been together for seven years, through health issues following Campbell’s traumatic brain injury and Surgecoff’s multiple sᴄʟᴇʀᴏsɪs.
After their 2020 wedding was delayed, they put off starting a family, or so they thought.
“We always wanted our ducks in a row, we wanted to get married, we wanted to move out, we wanted to have the right jobs,” Surgecoff said.
But little Liam had other plans.
“We were just kind of in shock and not expecting it, and all a sudden there’s a baby in the toilet,” Campbell said.
After the initial shock wore off – and family members showered them with diapers and clothes – Surgecoff and Campbell say they’re getting the hang of this parenting thing even if it wasn’t in their plans.
“Yeah it’s amazing now,” Surgecoff said, “so I wouldn’t change it for anything.”
Despite not having any prenatal care, Liam is doing great and only had to spend a couple of days at the hospital before being able to go home with mom and dad.
“Normal moms have nine months to plan to do whatever, to save and get gifts and buy stuff,” Surgecoff said. “Once they found out, they went into super overdrive.”
