Mother Aletha Ingram is pictured with her son, Terrance Emmanuel Ingram, who was born at approximately 4 p.m. on New Year’s Day afternoon. While he wasn’t the first baby born in Richmond County this decade, his family was the first to grant an interview with local media.
“I want him to go as far with his education as he can,” said Aletha Ingram, who gave birth to baby Terrance Emmanuel Ingram on the afternoon of New Year’s Day. “But, if he wants to be my doctor or lawyer, that’s all right, too. I’ll support him in that.”
The parents of the first child born in Richmond County this decade declined to be interviewed.
While the future remains uncertain for young Terrance, his very name speaks of love that has already come to pass in Aletha’s family.
The name Robert Terrance is a tribute to Aletha’s brother, who was born on January 10th, her original due date, along with his twin sister Robin Teresa.
Aletha is also a twin herself, with sister Aretha who currently lives in Virginia.
His middle name, which means “God With Us,” is an homage to the faith Aletha’s parents instilled in their children. Robert Ingram, Aletha’s father, is an associate pastor at the Church of God of Prophecy in Norman, as well as a licensed insurance agent.
During her pregnancy, Aletha said the children at the daycare where she works at in West End didn’t know what to make of Terrance’s impending arrival.
“They were telling I had a big stomach,” she remembered. “They would ask me, ‘What’s in your belly?’ and I would say, ‘A little baby.’”
One of the children didn’t quite understand at first.
“One little boy walked up to me and said, ‘That’s a baby alligator in your stomach,’” she giggled. “I don’t know where he got that from, maybe it was something his parents were teaching him.”
Terrance is Aletha’s second child, with six-year-old Aniya Covington now taking over the role of big sister.
“She was excited,” Aletha said. “She had been staying at my mother and fathers’ house for the last couple of days, and she was so excited in the hospital she beat everybody else in the room saying, ‘My baby brother’s finally here.’”
The adjustment has gone well, thus far.
“She can’t keep her hands off him, she’s always wanting to touch him and help take care of him,” she said. “I think she’ll stay like that until he gets big enough to start moving and take her stuff.”
For the father, Charles Mathews of Wadesboro, Terrance is the first child, and he said he could imagine no better way to begin his year and decade.
“It was beautiful,” he said.
Like Aletha, he went through the whole range of emotions at the hospital.
“It was kind of crazy, with everything going on,” he said. “It was kind of scary, too though, because he had a headache because she had one, and they had to hook him up to the IV. I was walking back and forth outside a lot.”
When Charles looks into Terrance’s future, he sees a multi-sport collegiate athlete who is also successful in the classroom.
“I want him to play football and basketball,” he said.
He stopped short of choosing a school for him, however.
“I’ll let him pick that, just as long as he’s happy,” Mathews concluded.
Along his path to athletic and academic success, Terrance will have a lot of support from the Ingram and Mathews families.
“My family is a really good support system,” Aletha said.
She is currently living outside of Norman with her older sister Krystie, who she said Terrance adores, and their parents live directly behind them in their housing development.
“He sleeps all but about four or five hours during the day,” Aletha said. “But when she gets home from work, he perks up. He’s really taken to her.”
She said that it took some time for him to get to the point where he could sleep the majority of the day, however.
“The first night, I thought I was going to die,” she said. “He kept me up crying all night. I think I got to bed about 4 o’clock, but he’s getting used to it now, and he can sleep just fine.”
During her pregnancy, Aletha said it was hunger that kept her awake at night.
“I was craving Bojangles French fries all the time,” she said. “I would call my mom up and be like, ‘We’ve got to go to Bojangles,’ and she would take me.”
She laughed that it cost $10 in gas to get to Rockingham, “just for a $2 large order of French fries.”
Following her interview with the Daily Journal, Aletha pondered one phrase that summed up her New Year’s Day.
“I’d say, first baby of 2010 arrives with a bang,” she widely grinned, chuckling and cradling Terrance in her lap.
Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.
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