I know of a couple of people who have adopted from the state. One is over on the Rubber Ducky board and one is a personal friend (she adopted her daughter as a newborn 18 yrs. ago and she just recently got accepted to a really good university). Also, there is woman on the High FSH Playgroup board who adopted her son through the state.
My DH and I are doing a domestic open adoption. We decided what our cap in terms of professionals' fees and birthmom expenses would be and have made all our decisions based on that. We went with a non-profit agency that just charges for services used (as opposed to a one time all inculsive fee). Unfortunately the agency route was takin gforever so we eventually decided to go with a facilitator/consultant who shows you how to do your own outreach. Once we did that we matched pretty quickly with a birthmom who lives at home with her mom and has medical insurance so we will not need to pay rent, food, clothing expenses, etc. In fact, she is adamant about this not "getting weird" with money and prefers to buy her own maternity clothes etc. She doesn't want this to smack of her trying to take advantage or that this look anything like a baby sale. We really like her so much! I feel very lucky! Of course, there are still some travel -related expenses since she lives in another state. But I have met some people through RESOLVE who just indicated that they wanted a birthmom who lived closer to the area...
There are so many ways to go about it, you just might have to be creative and bottom line, do what is best for you and your family. And don't forget there is an adoption tax credit and some employers offer adoption grants.