Cindy Lange-Kubick: Welcome, Cadi, to your 'new' family

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A camera clicks inside a fourth-floor courtroom Friday morning.

It captures a little girl in a white dress at 48 minutes and 47 seconds after 10.

She is standing on her papa’s lap, clapping.

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As she waited in the hallway, Cadi got a hug and a kiss from Cindy Loos: "She's going to be my niece!" (Robert Becker)

Her papa is clapping.

Her mom is clapping.

And so is her brother Manny and her brother Tommy — the one she calls Nana, although no one can figure out why.

Her grandma is clapping and so are her aunt and her uncle. And the woman from the foster care place and her best friend, Jenna — a 2-year-old with wide eyes — and Jenna’s mom, and all of the other people who have waited two years, three months and 28 days for this.

Imagine a wedding.

Or the day the doctor says the cancer is gone.

Or your teenager in a cap and gown.

Something you’ve been longing for. Dreaming about. Wanting more than you’ve wanted anything.

This is that moment.

The moment the judge makes the girl’s new name official. Cadijohn Alvina Cynthia Rivera.

And makes Manuel and Christina Rivera her official parents.

“Permanency,” Judge Toni Thorson calls it.

Cadi’s birth mother loved her, but she couldn’t take care of a baby.

And Christina and Manuel couldn’t have more babies of their own.

They already had hers (Tommy, 22), his (Jonny, 19, and Charity, 22), and theirs (Manny, 13).

But they wanted one more. A little girl.

An international adoption was too expensive, so they became foster parents, hoping to adopt here in Nebraska.

They took foster parenting classes.

Then one January day they visited a baby in a hospital nursery.

“Manuel almost knocked the nurse over trying to get to her.”

Cadi was 48 hours old when they wrapped her in the blanket Christina had worn home from the hospital nearly 41 years before.

“I can’t believe she walked at 8½ months,” Christina says, “because someone was always holding her.”

Then came the hard part — worrying that someone would snatch her back, and waiting for a system that won’t be hurried.

Cadi had five caseworkers in 28 months. It felt like starting over each time a new one took over. Christina called their supervisors, state senators and the governor, trying to speed things up.

She began taking blood pressure medication.

“Until the day the adoption goes through, you can’t get their hair cut without permission.”

But love, love just comes.

“She’s everybody’s baby,” Christina says. “If you meet her, you can’t help but love her.”

When they go to Wal-Mart, the clerks call out “Hi, Squeakers!” because her white shoes make noise when she walks.

And the lady at McDonald’s — Cadi calls her the Hola Lady — advises Christina on the best way to style a black girl’s hair and has been praying for this day to come — just like the pastor at Cadi’s church.

Then the day comes.

Christina fixes Cadi’s hair, two tiny pigtails, the way the McDonald’s lady told her.

They walk through the metal detectors at the Hall of Justice at 9:53.

Manny comes with a camera. Grandma Alvina comes with pink Kleenex. Aunt Cynthia brings a birthstone necklace for Cadi to wear with her white princess dress.

When Tommy comes with his wife and little boy, Cadi runs down the fourth-floor hallway. Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Nana!

Their lawyer, Stefanie Flodman, comes in a blue lawyer’s suit. Her son, Joe, is almost 5. She adopted him last year.

Jenna’s mom and dad, Sherri and John Wilson, adopted her last year, too. Christina and Sherri met in foster parents’ class. Now the girls and the two moms who chose them are best friends.

It is 10:42 when they all file into Judge Thorson’s courtroom.

Christina and Manuel and Cadi sit together. Manuel takes off his ball cap.

The lawyer asks Christina questions.

How long has Cadi been in your home?

Since she was two days old.

Has she been part of your family?

Completely.

Then Manuel: I love her so much.

The caseworker testifies.

This is in Cadi’s best interest, she says.

Then the moment arrives.

The judge signs the decree and the Kleenex comes out.

The guests begin to clap.

And a little girl in a white dress is standing on her papa’s lap, clapping too.

Reach Cindy Lange-Kubick at 473-7218 or clangekubick@journalstar.com.