When baby Asha arrived in Utah three months ago with her new parents, Gov. Jon and Mary Kaye Huntsman, she had to adjust to a whole new world.
    Gone was the Indian orphanage, the other babies and the comforting faces of her caregivers. New tastes and smells suddenly replaced familiar ones. And instead of elephants lumbering down the street, a golden retriever bounded up the stairs.
    But Asha's older sister, Gracie Mei, made the transition easier.
    "She has been like a second mother," Utah's first lady says of her other adopted daughter. "It would be a lot more difficult adapting if it were not for little Gracie," who can change a diaper, dress the baby and prepare a bottle - even in the middle of the night.
    While Gracie has helped Asha begin her new life, the younger sister - and the journey to adopt her - has helped Gracie better understand the life she left behind in China, the Huntsmans say.
    It's a struggle that many adoptees face at some point - making peace with the past so that they can move confidently into the future. And it's a process that the Huntsmans are trying to ease by being honest with their girls.
    "Our policy from the very beginning has been to be very open in discussions with Gracie, as we will be with Asha, about her circumstances and where she's come from and how lucky she is to be here," Jon Huntsman Jr. says.
   
    Under the public's eye
   
    The Huntsmans have not only been open and direct with the girls, but also with the public, which has been keenly interested in the growing family - and not always in a positive way.
    The first family has encountered some criticism about their decision to adopt internationally, rather than domestically.
    "I had messages and complaints. Not a whole lot, but some," the governor acknowledges.
    "That was hard for me, that people want to make their own accusations or comments about adoption. It's a very private, personal affair, and we should respect it as such," the first lady says.
    It's a problem more adoptive families confront. As a media circus follows celebrities adopting from abroad, "something emotionally so meaningful and significant becomes the flavor of the month," Jon Huntsman Jr. says.
    For the couple, the decision to adopt from China and India sprang from their past. Huntsman served an LDS mission to Taiwan and speaks fluent Mandarin.
    The family lived in Asia during Huntsman's stint as U.S. ambassador to Singapore and as a businessman.
    "Adoption is an extension of you as an individual or as a couple, and your experiences in life," the governor says. "The culture was always a part of who we were and what we did."
   
    Keeping their heritage
   
    Gracie Mei, 7, was abandoned in a vegetable market when she was just a few weeks old. Asha, 17 months, was left along a roadside as a newborn. Since joining the family - which now includes seven children, age 17 months to 22 years - the Huntsmans have tried to keep the girls' birth cultures alive, as well as make them feel at ease in their adopted homeland.
    Chinese and Indian dolls decorate the room Gracie and Asha share at the Governor's Mansion. A well-thumbed photo album sits on the dresser, filled with pictures of Gracie and other babies at the orphanage in Yang Zhou. Brightly colored Chinese dresses hang in the closet, alongside a luminous Indian sari. Gracie Mei points to some of her favorite pictures in a coffee-table book about China: a giant Buddha, women in traditional clothing, the Great Wall.
    "We want to make sure that these two are always very proud of their culture and know that that is their heritage and who they are," Mary Kaye Huntsman says.
    International adoption can be a bridge that gives a child access to two rich cultures, or it can be a chasm that leaves her feeling she doesn't quite belong on either side. Which it will be depends on many things, including how an adopted child copes with an almost inevitable sense of loss: Why did her birth parents give her away? Didn't they love her?
    Those are questions the Huntsmans will never be able to fully answer. In Gracie's case, it likely had something to do with China's population-control policy of limiting families to one child. In a country where boys are essentially a family's retirement plan, that means girls are often abandoned in public places where they will be found and taken to authorities.
    The preference for boys exists in India, too, and girls are sometimes given up by unwed mothers or impoverished families.
    No matter the circumstances, the Huntsmans believe Gracie and Asha were cherished by their birth parents. It's a topic that comes up each year at Mother's Day.
    "Somewhere out there is a mother who absolutely loved Gracie, and for whatever reason couldn't keep her," Mary Kaye Huntsman says. "Somewhere out there are two mothers that I love very deeply, and Jon does, too. They are very much a part of our lives."
   
    Finding their own place
   
    Making peace with the past is only half of the battle. The other half is getting comfortable in a new home.
    For the two Huntsman girls, that means finding their own place in a mostly white state, in a faith that doesn't have a strong standing in their birth countries.
    The Huntsmans adapt by making sure the girls have strong role models: The Chinese and Indian ambassadors have come to dinner, and Asha is becoming a fixture at local Indian restaurants and celebrations.
    As far as religion goes, their mother knows something about being an outsider. Mary Kaye was raised Episcopalian and converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young woman.
    And they believe Utah - and the LDS faith - are warm and welcoming.
    "We are a state of transplants," the governor says. "Mary Kaye and I are transplants, as are these two."
    Adoptive parents face their own challenges, and the Huntsmans are no exception.
    "We're not as young as we were when we had our first child," says Mary Kaye, age 45. Her husband is 47.
    The older children have rallied to help care for the much younger girls (Gracie is seven years younger than the next child in line, William, age 14). The Huntsmans have no nanny, just a college-age sitter who helps out in the afternoons occasionally.
    "The kids have stepped in when needed, and they have not complained. Each of them, our boys and our girls, they naturally have taken to this," Mary Kaye Huntsman says.
    So far, the Huntsmans say the transition for the entire family has gone beautifully. They can't imagine life without Gracie, "the scholar," and Asha, "the chili pepper, or should I say lime-pickled chutney?" Jon Huntsman Jr. says.
    They know some difficult questions will arise eventually, and when they do, the girls will have the best support a family can offer:
    "They have each other," their mother says.
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    * JENNIFER BARRETT can be contacted at jbarrett@sltrib.com or 801-257-8611