baby blessing

We were told that you can't bless the baby until after finalization. So our children were all 6+ months when they were blessed.

Your DH can give the baby healing and father's blessings etc. whenever you want. The official naming blessing that will be recorded in the records of the Church has to wait until after finalization though.

Yeah, it is after finalization. Our children were all much older - 5, 4, and 1, when we finalized and were able to give them names and blessings. We did it in our home, with only close friends and family, and of course the bishop. I really have to say I like the feeling much better personally than when I have been to blessings in church. Much more intimate. Our sibling group were our first children, but we are pregnant now, and I would like to bless our other children (however they come to us) at home. Also much easier to keep the kids happy during the blessing since they are older and don't want to just sit.

Funny, I was just thinking about this. We are finalizing our adoption next month sometime (fingers crossed) of our DD. E is will be 20 months old when we finally get to bless her. To anyone who has blessed a baby this age, HOW? She won't sit still and she's a little big to bobbed up and down, not to mention with family and close friends there are about 10 men who could be in the circle. That may be a tad overwhelming for her. We thought about me holding her on my lap, but then where do the men put their hands? She is not going to let a bunch of people put their hands on her head. :eek: :eek: What do we do?" On the brighter side, I'm am so grateful to be worrying about this instead of all the other stuff from the past 20 months.:cheer:

We blessed our DS just a few months ago. He was 20 months. My husband held him in front and another man put his hand in DS's bottom. My cousins were blessed with my aunt holding them. Blessings are special and babies/children know that. How many children have you heard cry throughout their blessing? I have only heard one in my life. Good luck and Congrats.

I don't think you have to wait until finalization. I know many people who did it before. We blessed both of ours when they were just a month old. It seems like many bishops like you to wait until finalization, but our bishop read the handbook and came to the conclusion that since it is a blessing (much like a fathers blessing...just in public) and not an ordinance, it was not a problem. I am not sure why some make you wait until after finalizing. Amongst our friends who have adopted, it is usually 50/50 on who does it before finalization and who do it after. It depends on the bishop.....and it seems that those in Utah or Az usually wait, but those in CA or on the east coast do it before....maybe it is a cultural thing. As far as I know (according to our bishop and stake president) there is nothing that specifically says you must wait. I have had friends do their blessings in their home (bio and adopted kids) and that works really well too!!! Just ask yours......and see what he says.....

My branch President told me that you can have them blessed before it is final, but it kind of make things look final, it might offend the courts. We were in Japan and didn't want the courts to take offence because they didn't understand the process. I think some people, possible even the birthmother might not understand what it is and that could cause problems.

In Utah, we were told by LDSFS when we adopted our son 3 1/2 years ago, that we had to wait for the name and blessing until after finalization. We never asked our bishop we just took the agency at their word. Also, when we did bless him, we made it one big celebration day by going to the temple for our sealing and then back to a local ward house to give him his name and blessing. We did it on a Saturday and served lunch afterwards. We decided to do it that way because we had family and friends that had traveled from California for the sealing but couldn't stay until Sunday for a blessing. We had an opening song and prayer and then our Bishop explained for our nonmember friends why children are given a name and a blessing and then he invited my husband and I to both bear our testimonies before he was blessed. It was the best day of my life and it is likely how we will do it again when/if we ever get our second child. Paula in Utah

Scraps- That is our plan too, except at our home instead of the ward building. We wanted it to be a little more intimate, since E is quite a bit older at 20 mos. and being at home might help her be still:rolleyes: . Never asked my bishop about the timing, but asked my Dad who is a bishop and when he checked the handbook, his interpertation was that father's blessings were okay before, but the official naming and blessing had to come after the finalization. So that is the recommendation we followed.

IS their a certian age that is too old give a child a name and blessing....or is their a time period where you have waited to long? I'm curious because we finalized my sons adoption Through fostercare when he was 4 1/2. We live far away from family and we seemed to have one adoption right after another back to back and decided we wanted to wait until all of our kids were finalized for us to all go to the temple (with our families) at the same time and make one big day of it and do the name and blessings on that day as well. Well, with a few delays in our last adoption that date keeps getting pushed back. We should be able to have ds finalized by the end of this year or at the latest February. But my son is already 7 years old. Is he too old, or have we had him to long to still get his name and blessing? We just couldn't piture getting sealed with out our family there and without being able to bring our other babies into the temple with us. I'd be bummed if we missed out on that opportunity for him and us by waiting for all our babies to be ready.

mom2- I'm not sure about the age thing, that is something that you could talk to your bishop about, but logically I can't see a problem with doing it that late. Did you know however, that children that are already sealed to you can attend the sealing with you? Not kids that don't have a final adoption, but you could seal your kids as they finalize and then that child could attend the next sealing and those two could attend the next and so on... Then you could have one big party when they are all there at the same time for the last one. We have two BIC kids and was so happy to learn that they could come to the sealing!

interesting thought. when we adopted our son 12 years ago, we took our other BIC kids (5 of them) along to the temple to the sealing of our baby. it was awesome. the question i just thought of is I have 2 more kids we adopted, but were already sealed to their parents. at first we were told that 1 child could be sealed to us because he was sealed to his parents when they went to the temple and that sealing could be broken and made with us. the other child could not be sealed to us because she was BIC. then we were told the only way they could be sealed is if we got permission from the first presidency. now we are told that temple sealing is an ordinance like baptism and doesnt need to be done over if your name is changed. the kids come up on our church records as if they are sealed to us. but we are awaiting the birth of our next baby and we will take her to the temple after finalization. i wonder if those achildren will be able to come with us. i will need to talk to the stake president, i think.

the age doesn't matter....my dh kept waiting for nearly a year after the sealing to give my 5 yr old a name and blessing.

Yes I did know that the kids could come in the temple to attend the other childrens sealings if they had already been sealed to us. But at the time we finalized our oldest sons adoption (5/04) we had our baby girl already in our home (2 months old) that we were fostering. A week after we finalized our sons adoption they told us we could adopt our baby girl set for (10/04). Well a week before her adoption we went to court on my oldest fd and found out her bmom signed over her rights, so we would soon be able to adopt her as well in the next 6 months. Welll durign that time we also got our baby boy who we were told would likely come up for adoption. We finalized my daughters adoption in (5/05). Then we were waiting on the TPR of my son that happened in (3/06), but then the bmom filed an appeal, the appeal has now been dropped and we should be able to finalize his adoption in the net couple months. So our adoption have really been back to back and overlaping. None of our family lives near by and none of them could attend heir adoptions. Plus we couldn't imagine going to the temple with one child and leaving the rest with a babysitter (our nearest temple is 3 hours away). We really wanted the temple day to be a special day where all of our kids could be there and where we can plan for a lot of our family members to come with us and spend some time together and while everyne was together do the name and blessings as well. I know for us it was the right decision. But it's still been hard to wait this long. But when you think of all that has happened in the last 2+ years it really is not that long at all. Plus we knew that when these adoptions were complete we would stop fostering and move on with our life as a family. That seemed like the perfect way to close that chapter of our life and begin the next. When we moved here we were just a couple...but when we leave this area we will be a family a forever family. I can't wait....i hope they move quickly with my sons adoption so we can be complete!!!