Planning a funeral for your baby

Here is how you can support someone in this position.
Financial gift, food/gas gift cards, mail a hard written card, show up to the funeral, see what tasks need to be taken responsibility for, make sure they have a meal train set up for a few weeks after.

This is heavy and isn’t for everyone … don’t read it if you don’t need to.

No one should have to plan a funeral for a child … for your baby.

There is nothing quite like the heaviness that it holds. So much has to be done and paid for … Where do I start? What’s next? This process starts almost immediately after your baby dies and it’s overwhelming. My hope is that in writing this, it can be a resource to someone who may not know where to start and go next, to share ideas, to give insight and other options. This isn’t cookie cutter, things were probably forgotten, this is just from our experience.

I specifically wanted it to be perfect, just like Isaiah … as perfect as a funeral could be. Our to do list was quickly building. I had things I wanted and needed to write for programs, facebook posts to update people, needed to find an outfit for the funeral, order several items, several people to contact and struggled to think straight and wrap my mind around our new reality. A lot of this was done from sitting in the NICU with Bryce. I remember specifically telling his nurse that I didn’t want to be rude, but I had a conference phone call at 11:30 with my husband and our pastor to plan Isaiah’s funeral while I was doing skin to skin with Bryce - she was gracious and so kind.

• Soon after your baby dies, you need to call the funeral home to give consent to have your baby picked up. (The hospital will likely give you resources on local funeral homes, if you’re not sure who to call).

• With that, you need to start thinking about whether you want your baby cremated or buried. And plan a meeting with the funeral home to go over all options and the details. This also comes with a lot of paperwork.
  *If choose to bury your baby, they will guide you on picking a plot, headstone and making the arrangements of doing a graveside service if you choose to do that, etc.

• Where do you want your service? Who will do it? For us we chose to have the service at our home church. Trav called our Pastor and asked if he would be willing to do the service, thankfully he was more than willing to. I touched base with the church’s coordinator and told her our brief plans as well as the worship pastor, because we wanted to open and close in worship so that required a whole band. Because it was during Covid, we wanted to livestream it as some family wasn’t able to make it. So that required a tech team as well.
  *I highly encourage you to have the service recorded. I was in a daze and glazed over, I am so thankful I have it to look back on. And in our situation, this may, one day, bless Bryce to watch it.

• Once we touched base with the Pastor and team, we started thinking more in depth of what we wanted shared and order of service. We wanted Jesus’ hope shared, that He is still good. How much of an impactful and purposeful Isaiah’s life was and still is, even in such a short time. We wanted to share how we chose his name. We chose the songs we wanted to worship to - Champion, Battle Belongs and God of Revival. All had significant meaning to us - what we listened to during this season and the song that played when they were born.

• Order an urn, if you plan on having your baby cremated. We ordered a customized one from www.urns.com. We were more than pleased - beautiful quality, it quickly arrived and customer service was very kind.

• Programs. We were grateful my sister in law filled the void. She purchased an Etsy template and filled in the details we gave her and arranged for them to be printed.

• Order a guest book. We ordered this simple one from amazon.

• Outfits. We had to go shopping for outfits, but could always choose to have a casual service to avoid this.

• We wrote him a note, which we included into the program. Travis also felt led to share a tribute. So he worked on writing this.

• Do you want flowers? We didn’t want a room full of flowers that would soon die too. After the service they would have to go somewhere. We chose to set up a memorial fund in Isaiah’s name at the children’s hospital. This benefited other families in the NICU. Around $2,000 was raised!

• What items will you have on display? We haven’t shared pictures of Isaiah, so we didn’t have any out. We made a shadow box with all of his items that we had on display as well as a “name tag” that his nurse had made him.

• While I didn’t want a ton of flowers, I did want one nice arrangement from me and Trav, so we ordered that.

• Reception. If you are having a meal after, make sure someone is responsible for set up, take down, picking up food, restocking food, drinks, plates, silverware, etc..

• If you are having your baby cremated, pick up your baby’s ashes. No one can prepare you for this.

And I’m sure I’m forgetting things.

CALL ON YOUR PEOPLE. Most are more than willing to help.

I wanted to do most things myself and there weren’t a ton of things that other people could do. Our dads took care of most of the funeral home tasks, took me to order flowers. My mom set up the memorial fund for us, took me dress shopping and helped keep us on task with the next steps. We had our friends from church there early to help us set up and “coordinate.”

Our prayer is that if you’re in a situation like us … having to plan your baby’s funeral … you have peace, strength and comfort. That you do what you feel led to do, what brings you comfort, that your finances are blessed and those around you are supporting you to the fullest.

Ideas on how to honor your baby at the service:

Moxie’s parents had “i love you” charms handed out to the attendees to remember her because her hands were often signing “i love you”
Addie’s parents asked their guests to wear purple since that was her color.
Stella’s parents asked for encouraging scripture and for their friends and family to write a “thank you” to the nurses who poured so much love and care into their sweet girl.
Lorenzo’s parents had the service spoken in English and Spanish.
Ashlyn’s parents asked for donations to Isaiah Henry’s Legacy in honor of her.
*Other ways … butterfly release, give seeds to plant their legacy, light a candle, give tribute

You can view Isaiah’s memorial service HERE.