Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. knew what was coming when he reached out his arms to his newly adopted baby daughter just hours after the family arrived from her native India on Friday.
Sure enough, tiny Asha Bharati scrunched up her sweet face and began to wail.
"It's such a humiliating experience," Huntsman joked to the reporters and photographers gathered to meet the newest member of Utah's first family in the parlor of the Governor's Mansion.
But as soon as 1-year-old Asha was handed back to her favorite big sister, she slipped her thumb in her mouth and settled down. So far, only Liddy, 18, can soothe her. "I guess I look like a nun," Liddy laughed.
The Huntsmans — the governor, first lady Mary Kaye, Liddy, 14-year-old Will, and the family's other adopted child, 7-year-old Gracie Mei from China — traveled to a remote Catholic orphanage in western India to bring Asha home.
Eagerly waiting to meet their new sister were Abby, 20, and Mary Anne, 21, who are attending school in the East. "It was hard.
We saw the pictures of her in the newspaper and we just wanted to hold her," Abby said.
Gracie Mei said little during the media availability, barely whispering the word, "No," when her father asked if she wanted to talk about the trip. But she beamed at Asha, gently stroking her new sibling's foot as the baby fussed.
Will said that the average age of the family just dropped. "There's going to be a new age around the house," he said. The youngest of the Huntsmans' two sons, Will, is now a big brother to two sisters. Asha's other brother, Jon III, 16, was not able to be there to greet her.
The governor noted that Gracie Mei joined the family around Christmas, too, when she was just six months old. The Huntsmans — including Asha — will mark the holiday on Monday, he said, by volunteering at the homeless shelter during Christmas dinner.
"In India, they would call it good karma," the governor said of the timing of the two adoptions. "They came to us at the time of year when people are thinking about family ... so it's been particularly poignant."
The governor and his wife have spent much of last year attempting to finalize Asha's adoption, planning and canceling several trips to the Matru Chhaya orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity of Saint Anne in Nadiad.
On their nearly 24-hour-long trip home, Asha surprised her new family by taking her first steps in a Chicago airport as she was going through customs. "She turned around," he said proudly, "and took a couple of steps right there."
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