Governor to adopt child from India

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. hoped to bring home something more than new business for the state from next week's trade mission to China — the baby girl he and his wife are adopting in India.

But the governor found out Tuesday that the adoption paperwork for the 10-month-old baby they've already named Asha Bharati won't be completed for at least another month. So he has postponed plans to pick her up until possibly Thanksgiving.

"It's tandoori turkey for us," Huntsman joked in an interview Wednesday with the Deseret Morning News. He said he'll now be able to bring his family to the orphanage where the baby is living in Porbundar, a city in western India.

Huntsman had intended to bring along his wife, Mary Kaye, and Gracie Mei, the youngest of their six children, when he leaves for China on Sunday, so they could accompany him to India. Now, though, both will stay behind.

Gracie Mei, 7, was adopted from China by the Huntsmans in 1999. Huntsman said on this trip, he would have taken her back to the vegetable market in a poor Chinese neighborhood where she was abandoned as a baby.

That could still happen on the family's later trip to bring Asha home, the governor said, describing Gracie Mei as excited about her new sibling and old enough now to be curious about her own origins.

The name of the new baby was chosen because Asha means "hope" and Bharati means "India," Huntsman said. He proudly showed off a pile of photos taken of the baby that he keeps tucked in the top drawer of the desk in his private office.

Another photo of Asha, framed in silver, is displayed on a small table in the same office alongside pictures of other family members.

---

E-mail: lisa@desnews.com