Celebrating Your Adoption Finalization Day

Adoption is a special and personal experience. Here are some ideas that we hope help make the day a treasured memory.

Finalizing an adoption:

Have someone pass around a book, with blank pages ,where your guests can share their good wishes for your family.

Assign a photographer and photograph or videotape the event. You can also buy some disposable cameras and ask guests to take pictures for you to develop after the party.

Design a program that might include poems or special prayers.

If the adoption is international, display materials that help guests understand the child’s country of origin.

Think about ways that candles can be symbolically incorporated into the ceremony.

Create a memento of the day for guests to take home and to be saved for the child to cherish in the future.

Create a small photo journal so your guests can understand the process to becoming a family.

Have material available for anyone who is interested in adoption.

Ideas from our adoption forum members:

* On the day we finalized the adoption, we went out to eat with our family. It was very low key. The following month we had a party to celebrate and invited all out family and friends

* We did have a big celebration after his adoption was finalized. The following Saturday, I threw a big party in the backyard. We got him a cake that said, “________ is home for good.” I joked that the bakery probably thought that this a was a parole party. I told everyone that this was a “no gifts” occasion, but a few people brought along gifts, anyhow. Our son was only 5 months old, so he had no idea what was going on. But it made for beautiful pictures in his baby album and shows what a big deal it was to us.

* In our religion, when an adoption is finalized we take the baby to our temple to be sealed to our family for eternity. We believe that a baby who is sealed to the adoptive family is no different than a baby who is born under the sealing covenent (a biological child whose parents were sealed to each other before the baby was born). We believe that in God’s eyes it is the same. Our friends and family were there. What a wonderful feeling to know that our family is eternal and will be together forever, even after this life is over.

* Since DS was an infant placement and “Gotcha Day” was days after his birth, we focus on his birthday. We considered using Finalization Day as a special family day, but that is too close to a sibling’s birthday and a holiday. In fact, we used that holiday to attract other family members for our celebration of the Finalization. On the actual day of Finalization, DS wore a tiny football jersey with the year on the front, our last name on the back, and “finally forever” across his shoulders. We celebrated by going to a restaurant after leaving the courthouse.

* On the day we finalized our daughter’s adoption our family totally overwhelmed us (in a good way) with how excited they were for this day!!! We had so many family members packed into the courtroom, and she got her first bracelet, ring, and necklace from my hubby’s family. That evening they had everyone over to his grandmothers house and had a little celebration dinner. My best friend gave me and my daughter, each, a gold charm bracelet. Her charm said Daughter and mine said Mother. We decided that every year, on the anniversary of her finalization we would just take a family day with the three of us, do something fun, then go pick out charms to add to our bracelets. This past year her daddy took off work and we had a fun day at a theme park, ate at our favorite restaurant, then picked out teddybear holding hearts charms that say I love you.

* (Joanne) The day we finalized the adoption of our three, we took our case worker and guardian ad litem out to lunch. They had been such a huge support for us that we wanted to do something for them. (We also invited them to our adoption party the following month). After that we went back to the place that we all met and took some pictures. It was a great feeling to go back to the same exact spot, but this time as a family. We also had a party at The Hilton to celebrate a few weeks later.

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Tags: adoption celebrations

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