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Druid Hills Attorney Chronicles Adoption Adventure In New Book

When Rebecca Falco was told she and husband John couldn't bear children, they formed a family through open adoption. Five children and many adventures later, a book was born.

As a young lawyer, Rebecca Patton Falco seemed to have it all.

She had strong family ties, a large group of friends in and around Druid Hills, multiple college degrees, a wonderful spouse and promising career. Yet, life lacked one crucial desired element: the children that she and husband John so desperately wanted - the imagined family they would conceive and raise.

After repeated attempts at having a child, including visits to a fertility specialist and one devastating false positive pregnancy test during her peak child-bearing years, she was surprised when she received the diagnosis of “unexplained infertility."

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But instead of it being the end of their quest for a family of their own, it started the journey of a lifetime. It became a journey filled with choices and triumphs, loss and grief; a journey that eventually made them the parents of five adopted children, now ranging in age from grade school to high school. 

“Our family is a chaotic mix of individuals from seven different gene pools,” Falco said. “Did I imagine this would be my family? Never…. I never imagined that infertility would lead me to open adoption and to (first born) Emily’s birthmother and a whole new extended family. Each adoption was different from the one before, each child a different personality, a new puzzle to solve or simply accept. Would I trade them for my imagined family? Never.”

Through emails, Falco kept the people in her life in touch with her growing family's adventures and misadventures.

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The response to her stories was so encouraging that she spent 10 months meeting weekly with an Atlanta Writer's Group at Urban Grounds in Avondale Estates. It was after those meetings with the non-fiction critique group that she had her very first book written.

"Everything In Its Own Time" is the Falco’s family story of forming a large and multi-racial family through mostly open adoption. The book, which debuted last July, is the story of the children she and John became parents to, and the adoptions that fell through. It’s the story of picking names and schools and godparents.

One of the godmothers is Decatur resident Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls, a partner in the local restaurant, Watershed.

The couple began wondering when would they be finished building a family: At three children? At four? At five?

“Procedurally, it is hard work to adopt,” Falco sighs.

“It’s expensive to adopt," she said. "And there are no guarantees that one's efforts will result in a child.  It is also true that most adoptive parents are older when they begin the process and don't have "time" for more children.  They  may have been through years of infertility before resorting to  adoption as the way to create or add to their family.  So, in a sense,  our story is unique because we were crazy enough to keep at the  process even after we faced a number of failed adoption attempts.”

Bestselling author and Atlanta resident Melissa Fay Green (author of “Praying for Sheetrock” and "There Is No Me Without You”) wrote advance praise for Rebecca’s book: “Here is a story of an Atlanta family that reflects the diversity of America’s children. The author-mother, Rebecca Falco, bridges with love and resilience, her children’s varied pasts, challenges, and far-flung relations. In these pages she describes the creation, with her husband, of their larger-than-usual family, and the struggle to knit them all together into one loving, noisy, happy and precious group.” 

Profits from sales of “Everything In Its Own Time” will benefit The Baobab Home in Tanzania, Africa. It is a nonprofit orphanage founded by American mom Terri Place and Tanzanian dad Mwandu Caito. The Baobab Home provides interim care, meals and educational resources for abandoned children and children who have become “street kids” or orphans due to HIV or other causes.

“I decided to donate the proceeds from the book to a charity that concerns child welfare because it felt like the right thing to do,” Falco said. "My  family -- as difficult as they can be to deal with sometimes -- is a blessing.  I did not want to exploit this blessing for my  personal gain.  It makes sense to me that children in need ought to  benefit.” 

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