Bringing Vasco Home

A couple who now live in Laguna Beach have become the first Americans to adopt a child from Malawi since the high court in that country turned down Madonna's request to adopt a little girl last year.

Madonna had previously adopted a boy from Malawi.

The story of how Cathleen Falsani, a journalist and author, and her husband Maurice Possley became parents of 10-year-old Vasco is a tale worthy of a novel.

Falsani, who was a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, won a trip to Africa in a raffle.

While there, she planned to do some writing and as she wrote herself in her column: "I fell in love. Hopelessly, achingly in love."

When she met Vasco in Malawi, he was only the size of a 8-year-old -- no one is sure of his exact age.

He was struggling with a heart problem, malaria and a host of other problems. She found out his heart had a hole in it and he probably would not live very long.

He was an orphan, having lost both his parents to AIDS.

When the couple returned to Chicago, Falsani wrote a column about Vasco and several Chicago hospitals offered to help the child if she could get him from Malawi to America.

Falsani and Possley got the boy to Chicago, and Vasco had his life saving open-heart surgery at Hope Children's Hospital outside Chicago.

Not long after the surgery in June 2009, the couple began seeking to adopt him.

Despite Madonna's difficulties, Falsani and Possley succeeded in making Vasco their son legally.

As Falsani has written on her Facebook page, Vasco is now 25 pounds heavier and 6 inches taller than when he first came to the States. His heart has healed and she writes, "He's healed our hearts, with his, too."

The story of Vasco Possley is now being told in a documentary produced by Keiko and Rob Feldman, two former KNBC employees. The family also chronicles the story on its blog.

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