The Entrustment Ceremony

I had done some research on adoption, the process of it all and how to care for the birth mom and I read about people doing an Entrustment Ceremony. It sounded so great because it’s meant to give the birth mom closure and honor the decision that she has made and after doing it I can say that it did that and so much more. It’s called an entrustment ceremony because that’s exactly what’s happening, Brittani was entrusting us with her child. There are no words to describe how that feels really. We’re forever grateful.

We had planned to have the ceremony at Brittani’s parents house Sunday afternoon when we all left the hospital. When we realized Brittani wasn’t going home due to the c-section we decided we would do it in the chapel. Then we realized that Isaac couldn’t leave the floor so we ended up having the ceremony in her hospital room. There were about 17 of us I think crowded in the room but it couldn’t have been more perfect. Brittani’s family, some close friends, and my parents were able to be there. It was an honor to be able to spend some time with the people that Brittani loved. They embraced us and we felt cared for and like our family grew that day. Brittani made a few frames that had some verses that were meaningful to her in them, the words to the song we had play during the ceremony and one that had a poem about motherhood for me. She once again was so thoughtful about it all. To start off the ceremony we had the staff couple who introduced us to Brittani share how they met her and how they decided to call us. We’ll be forever grateful to them. God used them to bless us with a child. That’s no small gift. Then we shared how we chose Isaac’s full name. It’s a long one, Isaac Matthew Jeremiah. But it’s powerful and has a reason behind each name. We liked Isaac Matthew and Brittani like Jeremiah because that’s where she was reading in scripture when God made it clear that she should give him up for adoption. We wanted to honor that and so we added Jeremiah. Next Brittani read a letter to us and to Isaac and we read a letter to her. Talk about emotional. I mean snotty face crying emotional. We then played a song that we all loved called Beautiful Things while we poured sand into a vase and then different colored beads into a jar to symbolize our families coming together. We have the jar of beads in Isaac’s room.  Brittani’s dad who is a pastor shared some things about Brittani and some things from Scripture. Then we all gathered around and prayed for Brittani, Isaac and us. It was incredibly emotional, moving, and felt like God was present and honored in an incredible way. Kim even said she felt like she had been to something that was a sacred. I would agree. We then had food together because food always makes one feel a little better after a good snotty cry.

We all felt totally emotionally spent after that time but in a good way. Brittani said she was thankful for it and that she felt like it gave her some closure and the strength she needed to let us take Isaac home. Driving away from the hospital that night my heart was overflowing with thankfulness and still a sense of awe at what God had just done. I also had an ache in my heart for Brittani. I love that girl but thanks to her we now had two precious children in our back seat. Some days I thought we would never see that day come. And never in the way that it did. But man am I thankful!