We have a lot of ceremonies and events to mark special occasions such as baby showers or weddings.  Even though the day a family receives a child is often the most important day in their lives, there isn’t a lot of ceremony surrounding adoption.  For this reason, many adoptive families choose to do Entrustment Ceremonies or Placement Ceremonies to mark the placement of their child, the day they join their forever family.  There are many different ways to do Entrustment Ceremonies.  I’m going to start by telling you how we typically do an Entrustment Ceremony at our agency and then give you guidelines on how to do your own.

When we do Entrustment Ceremonies they are performed at a variety of places.  Sometimes they are done in the chapel at the hospital or in the hospital room.  If a baby has been in interim care or foster care we typically do the ceremony at the chapel at our agency.  There have been times when we did the Placement Ceremony after placement because a Birthparent wanted to be part of the ceremony but needed some time to heal and grieve before she felt ready to be a part of it.

We try to have the adoptive parents and Birthparents both involved in planning the ceremony, but that doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes Birthparents don’t feel that they are ready to take part in a ceremony or they choose to not be a part of the adoption process once they sign papers and we aren’t able to get them involved.  However, a majority of the time the Birthparents we work with choose to help plan the ceremony.

There are a number of things that we include in our Entrustment Ceremonies.  We have a basic ceremony that we do and we allow adoptive parents and Birthparents to add to it.  During our ceremonies we acknowledge everyone involved.  We acknowledge the Birthmother or Birthparents for giving their child life and for the love they have for their child, we acknowledge the adoptive parents as becoming parents and we acknowledge other family members or foster parents when appropriate.

The beginning of the ceremony is when we acknowledge Birthparents and foster parents.  Then we have what we call the “passing of the baby” when the baby is placed in the arms of the adoptive parents.  There are times when only the adoptive parents and their family members are present so we don’t always do the passing of the baby.  We then acknowledge the new family that was made that day.  Various people perform the ceremony from the adoption counselor to an elder in the church to family members.

We allow the adoptive parents and Birthparents to add to the ceremony however they wish.  We have had families write poems, read from the bible or simply talk about their feelings surrounding the day and the baby.  Candle lighting or songs are also very much a part of the Entrustment Ceremony.  It needs to be personalized by all parties involved if at all possible.

Personalization is a key component of a Placement Ceremony.  This is your chance as adoptive parents to be recognized as parents and to recognize the family that you have been dreaming about for a long time.  I encourage you to include whatever is special to you in the ceremony from poems to music to sayings.

Even though you are excited about the Placement Ceremony, it is important that you don’t invite too many people, especially if the Birthfamily is involved.  Birthparents might feel that this is a very private time for them and having too many people around might be overwhelming.  Talk with the Birthparents before you begin to invite people to the ceremony.  You might want to limit it to grandparents, siblings and a close friend or two.  Just as it is a private time for Birthparents, it is a private time for you and you might find yourself glad that you didn’t invite too many people so that you can concentrate on the moment and your own feelings.

If you are going through an agency, talk to them about their Placement Ceremonies.  If they don’t do them or if you are doing an independent adoption, consider doing your own ceremony.  You can find examples of Entrustment Ceremonies online or can contact me for further information on how to conduct one.  You will find that doing a ceremony and marking the importance of the occasion will be very special for you and others involved and it will help make this special occasion even more memorable for everyone.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 1st, 2006 at 2:21 am and is filed under Adoption. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.