[rachelandbrad]

Hi,
Just a quick intro then a question.

We are in Utah and we are matched with a baby boy due Jan 15. I know we have to wait until we finalize to have him sealed, but can we do the baby blessing before that? I keep forgetting to ask my bishop, so if anyone knows that would be great.

Thanks

Rachel

[Juliana13]

Ask your Bishop. There are conflicting views on that. On the one hand, baby blessings are not a "necessary ordinance." With that reasoning, our previous bishop allowed the blessings of adopted babies before finalization. LDS Family Services, said no way. You cannot give a child a name and a blessing until they have a legal name. They cannot go on the records of the Church with a name that is not legally theirs. With our two, since we were told that repeatedly by LDSFS, we blessed and sealed them on the same weekend, right after finalization. However, I was not willing to let our kids go months on this earth with no blessing, so on the first night they were home, they each recieved a "father's blessing" from my husband.

I would ask your bishop. Theyre may be a "right" answer. There may not be any one "right" answer.

In short, I don't know, I only know what I was told, from various sources. How's that for an answer??

[crystalp]

I asked my Bishop and a member of the Stake Presidency this same question. They both said that they couldn't see any reason why the baby couldn't be blessed. My Bishop said that it was okay because if anything went wrong *cringe* it wasn't that big of a deal to take the child off of the records. He even said that, truthfully, it wasn't illegal or anything to be sealed to the baby before finalization, but they wouldn't do it because it would be a HUGE pain to get that undone. That is understandable.
Having said all of this, you would still need to check with your Bishop just to make sure he doesn't have a problem with it, but from what I have been told, it's fine.

[aspenhall]

You actually need permission from the parents to be sealed, so until it's final, that wouldn't be you guys...and I could see you getting that permission, but really...it's seems very harsh not to just wait.

As far as the blessing goes, my dd recieved all kinds of father's blessings before we finalized....and we actually FORGOT to do the name/blessing for several months...because she HAD a name and was 4

[crystalp]

Sorry, I didn't mean for it to come across that it was okay to be sealed before finalization. It's not. That was just the reason my Bishop gave me for why they don't do it. It's funny, I wasn't even asking about the sealing, just about the blessing, and my Bishop just kind of volunteered the other info. Okay. I'll stop rambling now. Congrats to you, Rachel, on your match!!