Welcoming a Son

With Brad Pitt waiting back home, Angelina Jolie adopts 3-year-old Pax Thien, an orphan from Vietnam

By Michelle Tauber and Mary Green

Originally posted Thursday March 22, 2007 06:00 AM EDT

Inside a room in the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Justice on March 15, officials nervously paced back and forth in anticipation of an adoption ceremony unlike any they'd ever known. Then, at 10 a.m., a door swung open and Angelina Jolie appeared, looking reserved and carrying her 5-year-old son Maddox in her arms. But all eyes quickly shifted to the boy of the hour: a quiet 3-year-old dressed in a white T-shirt, gray pants and a pair of red-framed sunglasses. Accompanied by a Vietnamese assistant, "he looked shy and dazed," says Vinh Huy, a reporter for the Ho Chi Minh City Law newspaper who observed the scene. In contrast, a rambunctious Maddox "ran here and there discovering things." After a series of document signings, the department director handed finalized paperwork to a smiling and visibly relieved Jolie, who vowed to return to Vietnam, saying she wanted her new son "to be proud of his country," recalls Huy. "She said it was an important day in her life."

With that, Jolie, 31, became a mother for the fourth time – and the Vietnamese orphan with the sweetly shy smile and the big brown eyes officially began his new life in the world's most famous multicultural family. Newly named Pax Thien Jolie – Pax is Latin for peace; Thien traditionally means sky in Vietnamese – he joins big brother Maddox (adopted from Cambodia), along with sisters Zahara, 2 (adopted from Ethiopia) and 10-month-old Shiloh, the daughter born to Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, 43, last May. Already Jolie is talking like a proud new mother. "You can imagine what courage it takes to be in all new surroundings, with new people and a new language," she tells PEOPLE. "He is very strong."

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