A Leap of Love

The Curtises, Barbara, 60, and Tripp, 54, attribute their desire for such a large family, in part, to their own unhappy childhoods. Barbara grew up without a father, and Tripp's father left when he was 12. Both came of age in the 1970s counterculture in Northern California.

Barbara had two daughters, Samantha Sunshine and Jasmine Moonbeam, before she met Tripp in 1982 at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

Two months after their first date, she learned she was pregnant. They decided to get married and have the baby. The couple bought a house in Marin County, started a tree repair business and, as Barbara described it, "surrendered" to their family, focusing on good parenting as a way to heal past missteps or misfortunes.

"We made a vow to this universal God that we would accept all the children that he-she-it would provide for us," Barbara said.

Over time, their spiritual and political views evolved into a conservative Christianity. Their business grew. So did their family.

In 1992, Jonny was born. In the delivery room, the mother recalled, the doctor put a hand on her shoulder, and she understood something was different about her son. "He has Down syndrome, right?" she asked.

"It's okay," she remembers saying and believing. She said she was filled with expectation and excitement about the changes he would bring to their family.

Tripp's voice still cracks when he recalls a line of poetry the couple chose for Jonny's birth announcement before knowing about the disability: "God's gifts put man's best dreams to shame."

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Mark Li and Carol Lai, a Taiwanese couple in the United States on temporary visas, were stunned when they learned in 2000 that their firstborn had Down syndrome.

They knew little about the disability and could not imagine bringing him to Taiwan, where they believed social services to be scarce and stigma powerful. "Frankly, we were pretty scared," Li said.

They were impressed by the health care their son was receiving and the inclusive policies in American schools. "In Taiwan, a lot of parents keep kids with disabilities at home. They don't want to show them to the public," Li said. "Here you see them in every public school."