I don’t care if it’s a boy or a girl, as long as it’s healthy.

It’s the universal hope of all expectant parents: a healthy child, a “normal” child, a child with 10 fingers and 10 toes and the chance that comes with all this for a life unhindered by sickness or disability.

And for many, it’s a wish that comes true. But Francie Rau and her husband, Robbie, know how it is when it doesn’t.

They know how it is to discover the tell-tale creases running straight across a baby’s palms and the roll of fat at the back of his neck — both indicators of the chromosomal disorder Down syndrome for which their son, Ryan, tested positive soon after birth. A few years later, he also was diagnosed with autism.

Mrs. Rau knows the cloud of numbness that descends immediately after diagnosis and the sense of despair that follows.

But she also knows disability and despair aren’t the end of the story.

And in this, she’s not alone. Ryan, now 12, is one of five members of Troop 700, a Boy Scout troop in St. Joseph for people with special needs. Scouts in this troop perform modified versions of regular Boy Scout activities, which says something about them that their families have found to be true on a larger scale: Although they can’t do things like everyone else, this doesn’t mean they can’t do anything. And although life for them is different, it’s still life, still valuable, still theirs.

“I was so, so happy to learn about this troop,” says Mrs. Rau. “The boys do what they can, and they’re accepted the way they are. They get to be themselves.”

Monday night, the boys tossed a football back and forth at Krug Park as hamburgers and hot dogs cooked on a grill nearby. It was their first time this year to meet outside, a perfect spring evening shadowed by clouds just dark enough to make their families thankful rain hadn’t come, after all. It was the first time, too, for Matt Michalski and Sean Chance — boys interested in joining the troop — to attend a meeting.

“Hey, if you get un-tired, Old Man, come out and throw a football around with us,” Jason Baldridge, the Boy Scouts of America Robidoux District executive and this troop’s founder, calls to Scout Derek Meyers, the son of Judy and Bill Meyers. Derek, who has Down syndrome, is the oldest Scout at 35, but age doesn’t seem to matter much here.

“This is his meeting,” Mrs. Meyers says. “He keeps really good track of when it is.”

Meetings take place once a month, usually on a Monday, and they’re for the Scouts’ families as much as for the Scouts. In the three years these families have been meeting, they’ve become like one big family, bound not only by a common activity but also by being in the same boat.

Russell Wood, the troop’s Scout master, and his wife, Kimberly, know the value of not being in this boat alone — especially after years of experience dealing with a disorder even doctors don’t know much about.

The Woods’ oldest son, Quentin, is in many ways a toddler in a teenager’s body. The 16-year-old is one of only about 200 people in the world diagnosed with Sotos syndrome, a rare genetic disorder his parents describe as similar to autism in that he doesn’t speak, doesn’t do well in large groups and needs round-the-clock care.

Despite these ways he’s different, however, Quentin’s also a normal kid who fights with his brothers, likes tinkering with electronics, loves graham crackers and hates commercials — especially when they interrupt his favorite shows.

But if it bothered Quentin to be missing “Wheel of Fortune” on Monday evening, he didn’t show it. He was one of four Scouts — including Derek, Ryan and Brett Garrison, the son of Paul and Susan Garrison — to receive an award that night promoting him from Scout to Tenderfoot, and the troop’s fifth and newest member, Jarod Week, received his first Scout badge.

“It gives him something that’s his own personal thing,” Jarod’s mother, Julie Hansbrough, says of the troop. “He’ll never get married. He’ll probably always live at home with me. But this is a part of his life that’s just for him, as an individual.”

Jarod, who is 24, has a chromosomal defect that has required him to undergo 30 surgeries to correct a cleft palate and to address problems with his eyes, ears, feet, stomach and left hand. Despite these efforts, tumors in his ears caused him to go deaf a year and a half ago, which has hindered his already limited speech.

But none of this keeps him from wanting to help others when he sees them having trouble or from hugging almost everyone he meets or — especially — from looking forward to the special-needs Boy Scout camp that takes place in Lee’s Summit, Mo., every August. The camp pairs each special-needs Scout with a staff member or a regular Scout who is his buddy for the week — bunking with him, swimming with him and working with him toward merit badges.

“He already thinks it’s time,” Ms. Hansbrough says. “I showed him on a calendar how far away it is, but I think he still thinks it’s time to go.”

Last summer, Ryan Rau, the 12-year-old with Down syndrome and autism, was given two buddies — and the nickname Captain Runaway — at camp. But despite the trouble he may have tried to get into, his mom can’t wait for him to have the chance to go back.

After all, she knows from experience that Boy Scouts will allow him to be exactly who he is — and this is something she’d never want to change.

“When I look at him, I don’t see Down syndrome, ever. I just see Ryan,” she says. “And he’s just been a joy to me. All the Scouts in our troop have. They’re all like one of my own.”

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.