How Our Domestic Adoption Program Works

Pregnant women who are considering an adoption plan for their babies come to Sunny Ridge for free counseling, assistance and support. Our goal is to present adoption as a choice without pressure, in a way that values the life of her baby and honors her as a mother making decisions for her child. If a young woman decides on an adoption plan, she selects the family she wants to place her baby with from profiles of families who have been carefully studied by Sunny Ridge. Some of these profiled families are on-line. 

Because birth parents choose the couples they want to place their babies with, the qualifications of the prospective adoptive families studied by Sunny Ridge are also determined by the birth parents. Birth parents most often express an interest in openness, religious faiths, hobbies, and leisure activities of the adoptive couple.  Sunny Ridge also requires that adoptive parents: 1) be residents of Illinois or Indiana, 2) provide five references, 3) demonstrate income adequate to support a family, 4) be married at least two years, and have a secure and stable family life.

Under most circumstances for a domestic adoption the prospective adoptive parent’s age should not be over 40 and a limited number of parents are accepted up to the age of 45.  Although there is a wide variance, most of the couples that have been selected by birth parents have a combined age of around 70 to 75.  There is more flexibility with age requirements in a prearranged adoption, our African American program and International Adoption programs.

When providing birth parents with profiles of adoptive couples, their mutual comfort level of openness is considered.  While there are some birthparents who prefer a "traditional" adoption, open adoption is the most common choice. Most birth mothers want to meet the adoptive couple before and after the baby is born, and would like to receive pictures and letters after placement, and/or have ongoing meetings. Adoptive and birth parents are offered counseling to better understand their roles in open adoption, always placing the highest priority on what is best for the child. 

Prospective adoptive parents usually enter the adoption process after attending one or more of our free adoption orientation meetings. From the information you receive, you may wish to complete an application to the domestic program. A nonrefundable $250 application fee is due with your completed application.  

Upon receipt of your application, the $250 application fee, and a snapshot of you, your application will be processed and a receipt sent to you. In order to familiarize our agency with your application information, it will be regularly reviewed against the prescribed traits given by our birth parents. You will be kept in active consideration for a period of two years. 

The Sunny Ridge Family Center Domestic program currently places an average of 30 infants a year. Approximately 35 percent are placed through our African American program. Our goal is to keep about 25 families with completed home studies “on profile” so as to offer a selection to our birth parents while minimizing the wait of prospective adoptive parents during the “on Profile” phase.  Each time five or six families move off of our profile list, we invite a new group of families to begin the Adoption Preparation Classes and complete their home study packets.  Every current application is reviewed again and considered, taking into consideration the wishes of birth parents and the needs of the children that we will be serving. Families are chosen for the group with consideration to what the applicants are open to and the way these factors match with the needs of our profile list. For example, we need families open to adopting Caucasian, African American and biracial infants. We also need to have families on our profile list who are open to prenatal exposure to smoking, alcohol and/or drugs as approximately 20 percent of our birth parents report use of these substances during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester.  It is also important that we have families committed to openness and to their faith.

We also offer home study and birth parent services to families who use other methods of locating each other.