Parenthood brings a purposeful focus

THE PARENTS: Aja Jackson, 26, and Ronald Jackson Jr., 27, of Brooklawn, N.J.

THE CHILD: Cree Ronald, born March 13, 2021

HIS NAME: They considered the conventional — ”Ronald Jackson III” — and the unusual — “Ocean” — before deciding they both loved “Cree.”

It was right after a date at the Camden waterfront that Ronald popped the question.

“Would you like to be my girlfriend?” he asked.

By then, he and Aja had been inseparable for two years, ever since meeting, as high school juniors, at a mutual friend’s birthday bash.

Ron was different from most teenage guys, Aja recalls. “He has an old soul. This … aura about him. It was a straight-up spark. A click. I know it sounds cliché, but it was meant to be.” They bonded over the arts; Aja was already passionate about photography, and Ron was section leader of the Pennsauken High School drum line.

“In high school and college, people hide a lot of stuff,” he says. “She was very vulnerable; she wasn’t hiding anything. She made me let my guard down.”

The pair talked by phone daily, and they dreamed up the project of a digital yearbook that included photos, interviews, and video footage from homecoming, prom, and spirit week. They worked on it every weekend in Aja’s garage.

And they grew up together — through a few years at Camden County College, through Aja’s decision to launch a photography business and Ron’s choice of a career in barbering. While attending a cousin’s Brooklyn wedding in 2019, gazing at the Manhattan skyline, Ron had the sudden conviction that he needed to propose.

A few days later, his father died, and that loss just affirmed his decision. “I knew this was what I needed to do,” he recalls. On a trip to the Poconos, after a hike on which Ron acted so jittery that Aja thought he might have altitude sickness, he lit the propane firepit and proposed just as the sun was setting.

They had a wedding theme planned: “Lights, Camera, Jackson” in homage to their mutual love for film. Old movie reels as centerpieces. A venue, a photographer, a DJ. And then COVID-19 happened.

“We had to simplify everything and get married at the courthouse in Pennsauken,” Aja says, with their best friends as witnesses — and one small, silent attendee. They’d found out just two months earlier that she was pregnant.

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Both wanted kids, but a doctor had told Aja that conception might be difficult because of polycystic ovary syndrome. “I was devastated. There were times I’d just go home and cry to my mom,” she recalls.

So when she didn’t feel well last July and grabbed a drugstore test on the way home from a trip to Atlantic City, they both felt stunned at the results. “The first thing I could do was tear up,” Ron says. “I was at a loss for words.”

At first, Aja felt overjoyed about the pregnancy. But her 19-week appointment brought a double dose of grim news: She had gestational diabetes, and the doctor was concerned about one of the baby’s kidneys.

“Here was another obstacle on top of the pandemic,” she says. “It felt like something was always going wrong.” Fearful of the effect her diabetes might have on the baby, she radically changed her eating habits — no more juice, no more carbs, just meat and vegetables and water. She dropped 45 pounds over the course of her pregnancy.

There were positive milestones as well: learning the baby’s sex, hearing his heartbeat on the ultrasound, feeling his kicks or finger flutters throughout the night.

Music seemed to soothe him, so Ron played Beethoven, smooth jazz, R&B, and soul. They talked to their son, whom they decided to call Cree. A doula helped answer their questions about birth and ease Aja’s anxieties.

“She said, ‘There’s no need to worry. This is a natural process. Everything will be OK.’ ”

Doctors urged an induction two weeks before the due date because they thought the baby would be large. They had told Aja and Ron that induction was a long, slow process. But it was actually a rapid ride from the time they arrived at Virtua Voorhees Hospital around 8 a.m. to contractions that ramped up by evening.

“I’m soft-spoken, so screaming meant I was in serious pain,” Aja says. Ron held her hand and rubbed her back as she bounced on a birth ball. An epidural helped. At one point, Aja told the nurse she felt a burning sensation, and when the nurse lifted the sheet, a head was visible.

Doctors scurried into position; Aja pushed for about a minute. “He wasn’t even crying at first,” Ron says. “He was looking around at us and the doctors, as if he already knew our voices.”

In some ways, Cree is just how he was in utero — active, especially between 2 and 7 a.m., when Ron runs a white-noise machine and turns on music to help his son settle down. Aja photographs him constantly, aware of how his face changes every day. She already has two 600-photo albums dedicated to her son.

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When he pictured a family of his own, Ron wanted to reimagine his own childhood. “I come from a divorced household, so I wanted a family with a mom and dad at home, and a lot of offspring.”

He recalls how meaningful it was when his parents showed interest in his passions — when his dad would drum with him, for instance — and wants to be present for whatever Cree decides to pursue. “I want to make sure that when Cree needs me, I’m available, I’m attentive, and my mind’s clear,” he says.

Aja hopes to reprise the holidays — especially Thanksgiving and Christmas — that were occasions of family togetherness when she was a child. “I do feel changed [by parenthood],” she says. “I’m more aware, wanting to be a better person, the best version of myself. I want him to have an amazing life, mentally, emotionally, and physically. He’s given me more of a sense of purpose. I want to make every moment of his life memorable.”