Who is Jaime Herrera Beutler's husband Daniel Beutler? Doting stay-at-home dad once planned to study medicine
During Donald Trump's ongoing impeachment trial, Republican Representative from Washington Jaime Herrera Beutler revealed that she learned about Trump siding with the Capitol rioters through a phone call, passed to her by Rep. Kevin McCarthy. In the alleged call, Trump reportedly told McCarthy that the rioters at the Capitol were 'more upset than you by the election', stated the New York Times.
Beutler was among the Republicans who voted in favor of Trump's second impeachment, blaming the former president for 'inciting' the Capitol attacks of January 6. Beutler is a prominent leader with several noteworthy campaigns on issues like bio-defense, healthcare, immigration, and military sexual abuse. She is married to Daniel Beutler and is a mother of three children. Her eldest daughter Abigail is the only known survivor of the rare disease Potter Syndrome, and Daniel is a doting stay-at-home father to her.
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Early life of Jaime Herrera Beutler
Born in Glendale, California on November 3, 1978, Jaime Lynn Herrera is the daughter of lithographer Armando D Herrera and Candice Marie. She belongs to part-English, Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry from her mother's side and Mexican descent from her father's side. Growing up in Ridgefield, Herrera was home-schooled till ninth grade and graduated later from Prairie High School. She later attended the University of Washington to pursue a BA degree in communications and graduated in 2004.
Thereafter, she started working as an intern at the Washington State Senate as well as at the White House Office of Political Affairs. In 2007, she replaced Richard Curtis at the Washington House of Representatives after he resigned following a sex scandal. In 2008, Herrera ran for state representative for the first time and retained her seat.
Meeting with Daniel Beutler
Jaime Herrera met her future husband Daniel Beutler in 2006 when both of them were working for US Rep Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Daniel, who originally hails from Marion County, east of Salem, is the elder among his three brothers. His father Paul managed a construction business while his mother Patti was a homemaker.
Daniel showed brilliance in academics and attended Seattle Pacific University with plans to study medicine. However, he later found passion in political science and pursued the subject instead. Much later, he started studying law at George Washington University but had to quit midway. He had also worked at SeaPort Airlines.
After meeting Jaime, the two started dating soon and two years later, in 2008, Daniel proposed to her atop the Hamilton Mountain on the Columbia River Gorge. The couple got married soon and Jaime Herrera took her husband's surname, thereafter known as Jaime Herrera Beutler.
Doting parents to Abigail — a survivor
The Beutlers announced their first pregnancy in May 2013, when Jaime became the ninth ever woman in Congress to have a child while serving in office.
However, complications arose soon as the couple learned that their unborn child was diagnosed with Potter's Syndrome, a rare and mostly fatal congenital condition with impaired kidney function and inhibited lung development. The soon-to-be parents were turned down by several hospitals for an experimental treatment that might save their child. Finally, a doctor at Johns Hopkins agreed to it and Jaime traveled to Baltimore every morning for four weeks to receive the injections for the treatment.
On July 29, 2013, their daughter Abigail was born at 28 weeks. She was born without kidneys, becoming the first child in medical history to be born alive without two kidneys. After six crucial months of treatment at the hospital, little Abigail was allowed to go home.
But, at home, she had to be kept under constant monitoring, and under survival support by a dialysis device. Her father Daniel Beutler set an example for parents worldwide, by willingly giving up on his career in law and becoming a stay-at-home father. He took care of their little daughter for two and a half years, while Jaime Herrera pursued a successful career in politics.
In 2016, Daniel Beutler donated one of his kidneys to Abigail, and Abigail underwent successful transplant surgery at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford in California. Daniel Beutler's father has admitted his pride in his son's tremendous sacrifice. "He's given up a lot. he's given up a lot of his personal goals and dreams," he said to Oregon Live.