Jon Huntsman Jr. wanted a couple of children. How they got to that number is a matter of chance, deliberation and, perhaps, the first lady believes, the workings of a higher power.
Now, as they celebrate their first Christmas with the newest member of their family - 1-year-old Asha - memories of another Christmas seven years ago are inevitable. That year, the couple brought home a 6-month-old baby daughter from China they named Gracie Mei. Their two adopted daughters have extended the Huntsmans' child-rearing - and the exhaustion, worry and expense of parenthood - another 20 years.
At the same time, the governor and his wife say the experience has transformed them and their children. "The most joyful thing we have done as a family is to adopt," says the governor. "You pick up a person and change their life completely and try to make their future better than it would otherwise be.
" The two adoptions were very different, practically. But the emotions they evoke transcend time and country. Mary Kaye Huntsman first started thinking about adopting 15 years ago, when she was working at a Chinese orphanage while pregnant with the couple's youngest son, Will.
Her husband said "Let's do it" in May years later - the month Gracie
bombed China's embassy in Belgrade and before the SARS scare - for a time after both, foreign adoptions were shut down. The couple went alone to pick up the baby. She came with the clothes on her back.
A discrepancy in the paperwork nearly sent them back to the rural orphanage where they picked her up. And the embassy was closing for a month for Christmas. Their other children were waiting at home.
That crisis was narrowly averted. "It's never certain until they're in your arms and you are on the plane home," she says. The second time around, adoption was Jon Huntsman's idea.
He picked up an article on adopting in India a year ago and showed it to his wife. They submitted their application - and then they waited. When the family arrived to pick up their baby, a crowd of villagers and reporters was waiting.
After three hours of ceremony, and laden down with gifts from the nuns who run the Indian orphanage - including silver necklaces for each of Asha's sisters, silk clothing for the little girl and a brass camel - they were on their way. When the nuns handed Asha over this week, it felt permanent to Mary Kaye Huntsman. ''They love these little children like their own,'' she says.
''As a mother, that's very hard to contemplate. It's very bittersweet.'' There is a common thread between the two adoptions: Both girls were abandoned.
Both come from impoverished circumstances in vast Asian countries. Already, Gracie feels an intuitive connection to Asha. She looks at the grainy video of the day her parents picked her up and asks to hear her own ''orphanage story.
'' After this week, she is more aware of what that word means. She makes Asha's bottles and organizes the diaper bag; "Without any training, she's the quintessential older sister," her father says. For Asha's older siblings, the two adoptions have opened their eyes to a world they didn't know existed.
"I never thought I'd feel this way having two sisters who are not blood-related," says 18-year-old Liddy Huntsman. "It's opened my mind about the world. I realize how much a person can do to make a difference and how lucky we are.
It's been the greatest blessing of our lives." And now Asha is home for Christmas - just as her older sister was seven years ago. She has taken her first steps - in Chicago's O'Hare Airport.
She's eating oatmeal. She lets her brothers hold her now - something reserved for the women of the family early in the week. They expect "a lot of screaming car rides" as Asha gets used to the car seat installed in the family's Suburban; car seats are unheard of in India.
"You want to have them there, close, the first little while," says Mary Kaye Huntsman. "She'll be there - probably with Gracie on the floor right next to her." For now, the Huntsmans are Asha's guardians.
India will only allow its citizens to adopt in Indian courts. Noncitizens are granted custody or guardianship and complete their adoptions at home. The Huntsmans plan to file legal paperwork as soon as possible to make her adoption final.
A week ago, Ramdasji, chief of Santarm Temple in Nadiad, told the Huntsmans they were connected to their Indian daughter through her cycle of lives. "Your daughter is a divine soul," he said. "Somewhere, you were connected.
" Although of a different faith, they take that to heart. As each adoption came together, timing slipped into place and bureaucratic snafus were averted, it all felt destined, says the girls' mother. First one parent and then the other suggested opening their home to another child.
''There's a connection that can't be explained, that's hard to describe. It's a very spiritual journey. We've given each other the greatest gifts we ever could.
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