After being in the deepest, darkest, barrel for 9 months, Cody Beau Mottram yelped for joy as he clawed onto life seconds after his first breath! The after spray from the barrel was intense, but Cody managed to stay on his feet for a perfect 10. Cody may take some time to recover and when he's next on a wave, (about 5 years time) the biggest barrel of his life will be a forgotten moment, although for all who witnessed (well mainly his Mum), it will live in memories forever.
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Ok so that was a bit contrived, but hey what's a bit of artistic licence between friends....
And the long version of what actually happened for anyone who might care...
My Mum was due to arrive Monday night and the plan was that she would look after the kids, take them to school and generally help out on Wednesday (planned Caesarean birthday). Both Charlotte and I have no family locally and our parents live 200 miles away, so a 'known' birth date had massive advantages for us. But towards the end of last week and into the weekend my Grandfather (Mums dad) suddenly fell gravely ill and was seriously looking like dying just in time for my new babies birth. My Mum was obviously in a bit of a state and was needing to be with her Mum, siblings and her Dad.
Charlotte and I thought fine, we can adapt, the new plan will be drop Char at hospital at around 7am, I get back and get the kids to school and then rush back to the hospital hopefully in time for the delivery of Cody. Both our other children were delivered by C-section around 9am but depending on where on where Char fell on the list it could be as late as midday so we felt we had plenty of time.
Monday night we heard the news that my Grandfatherhad was in a stable state and although in ITU the doctors said nothing was likely to change for a while so my mum said she would come down Tuesday Night and the original plan could go ahead.
I woke up Tuesday Morning with two golf ball sized lumps sticking out of my neck... apart from my obvious discomfort and feeling slightly scared about my predicament the reaction from Charlotte was understandably quite extreme, by 8.50am I was sitting in our doctors surgery waiting to be examined.
After answering a list of questions, most of which I answered "no" and explaining my predicament (my wife giving birth tomorrow) the doctor gave a bit of a smile and said "I hope you weren't planning on being in the theatre tomorrow" and "I'm not sure what's wrong with you, maybe Glandular Fever, you need a blood test". So two pieces of great news to tell my wife, I wont be at the birth of our 3rd child and I might be ill for the next few weeks. She'd be cool!
So my Mum arrived Tuesday night, I dropped Char at the hospital Wednesday morning and we showed/explained to the Nurses and Doctors my illness and they gave Char a private room (bonus!), away from the other new Babies and Mums and the medical staff suggested I didn't get too close to the baby when it came or Charlotte who was about to get cut open! I then rushed home took my kids to school, gave my mum the sat-nav and the keys to my other car and rushed back to the hospital. Char was still waiting and had been put to 3rd on the list. We had about an hour to wait and time seemed to start warping into slow motion and the longest hour of our lives slowly ticked by.... Eventually a midwife turned up and said "Do you want to walk to Theatre or ride on the bed?" Charlotte opted to walk and I sort of waved good bye and said I'll be back in a couple of hours to meet our new baby. Very very weird experience not even kissing or hugging my wife goodbye before she had one of the biggest and scariest experiences of her life.
I had 2 hours to kill and sitting in Charlotte's room may have driven me insane so I went to meet my mum in Bournemouth town centre for some coffee. I drove from Poole Hospital quite erratically, my mind was best described as confused. As I walked through Bournemouth town centre I had the strangest sense that I was in the wrong place, it felt like a weird dream where you can't get to a place you want or you have missed something for being in the wrong place. My trippy mind was probably not helped by my fever but it was one of the strangest sensations I've ever had.
I returned to the Hospital after about 2 hours and Charlotte wasn't back from recovery. I sat... well when I say sat I was pretty twitchy, my adrenalin was pumping overdrive and I started to worry... 10 minutes passed and eventually Charlotte and Cody arrived........... they both looked happy, Charlotte looked a bit yellow and felt very sick but she was smiling. I felt my tension and stress slowly drain away.
I brought Imogen and Billy to come and meet their brother at about 6pm and all seemed good in the world. Charlotte only stayed the 1 night in hospital and by Thursday afternoon I had a very full home. Happy days.
Cody 2 Hours Old
Imogen and Billy Meet Cody
Cody Home
So now I need to get better because I need a surf!
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