Full-Time Writer, Overtime Mom

I moved to San Francisco in '72, divorced my husband, was a single mom with two daughters, really went down the tubes as a drug addict and a drug dealer. Then in 1980, that was when I started to change, because I got sober through AA, met my husband [Tripp], got married, started having more babies, looked for a spiritual path, exploring Eastern religion. I became a Christian in '87.

You have four sons with Down syndrome. How has that experience changed your life and outlook on the world?

[Jonny] was my eighth child. I knew enough about kids with Down syndrome that I knew it was going to be a wonderful adventure. Then we decided to adopt a baby with Down syndrome.

In the meantime, a couple had come to us who had gotten a prenatal diagnosis for their second baby that he would have Down syndrome. The mom wanted to get an abortion, and the father had been raised Catholic so he didn't [want her to]. They came to us just to get some informal counseling, and they ended up asking us to adopt their baby. That was the compromise -- that she would carry the baby if we would adopt him. Daniel was born on Mother's Day.

So here we were, with four kids under the age of 4 and three of them had Down syndrome. . . . Then in 2000, Catholic Charities called and asked, "Would you maybe be willing to adopt another baby?" I said, "No way. I'm exhausted, I'm 52 years old and I'm sorry."

I got off the phone, and my daughter Sophia, who was 12 at the time, had heard me. She said, "Mom, I can't believe that you would ever say no. That's not who I thought you were. And besides, we can adopt. Then we can be dirtier by the dozen." She was mixing up "Dirty Dozen" and "Cheaper by the Dozen."

This family came over, and they were from Taiwan. They were on student visas . . . and the mom really loved [Justin]. They wanted to go home to Taiwan, but they didn't want to take him, because they'd been here long enough that they could see that we honor people with disabilities and take care of them and offer them education and everything, which they would never do in Taiwan. They had interviewed 20 families and had not liked any of them, but they liked our family because they said our children were respectful and kind to each other.

I think back and think, wow, normal people would have thought, well, what is this going to look like in 10 years? And they probably would have said no. But Tripp and I aren't like that. We're kind of like risk takers that are like, "Oh, sure, we can handle this."

What's rewarding about having 12 kids?

What's so great for me is all the activity: to go to this one's game or this one's rehearsal. It's fun. When you have your little children, you tend to be exhausted. But it's so wonderful when they grow up. . . . My son who's 20, he's gotten into making CDs for me lately. He's into indie music, and I love it because I would not know these beautiful songs and these wonderful things if I didn't have a son who was turning me on to that.

The downside is . . . it is expensive. We've sacrificed a lot. We never drove fancy cars or took the expensive vacations or anything. We don't have the plasma TV. Where we chose to put our resources was into our kids.