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I have been doing some light research, and while I have heard many wonderful stories (and some not so wonderful...), I am having a little trouble knowing where to get started. My husband and I and are interested in adopting through the Safe Surrender program in California. Can anybody give us any tips at all on where to start and what we can do to make the process go as smoothly/'quickly' as possible? Any and all advice is appreciated.
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There are actually not very many babies abandoned through this program. The first step for you would be to become a foster parent. The babies usually go to foster parents first. In a few places they do place them through agencies, but I think most go to foster parents and when they are ready for adoption (the state does try to make sure that the person who dropped them off was the parent and that there is not other family who wants the child) the paperwork can take some time and they are usually offered to the foster parents first.
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I live in California also. In my county safe surrender babies are placed immediately into a pre-adoptive home. This is a foster home that is both foster care licensed and adoption approved. Here safe surrender babies are always placed directly through the county and not through a private foster family agency, so your first step should be to contact the county department that handles foster care in your area and inquire about becoming a fost/adopt home directly through the county.
Keep in mind, though, that safe surrender babies are fairly rare and there are many people wanting to adopt them because it is generally a quicker and less risky process than adopting an infant through "normal" foster care. I was told by my children's caseworker that last year our county had 8 babies surrendered through the program and that was a record high for any one year. According to this [URL="http://www.babysafe.ca.gov/res/pdf/SSBFactSheet.pdf"]document[/URL] published by the California Department of Social Services, only 407 babies have been surrendered in California in the 11 years since the safe surrender program started. That only averages to 37 babies a year in the entire state!
I don't want to discourage you, I just don't want you to set your hopes on something that is not likely to happen. Have you considered adopting through normal foster care?
I am saying this in the kindest way possible. If you can have a bio, do IVF or adopt privately, do so. We have been put through Hell by our county. The things that have inadvertently happened to us, have appalled our workers. It has been two years and three months of waiting for us and we are open to: high risk, drug addicted or exposed, familial history of mental health issues, mild physical disability, race open and siblings. And still we wait... Had I known what the path for us would have been like, I would have made different decisions.I hope you are one of the lucky ones, who has things just go right. Best wishes.