I forgot to add that lots of people have success and reduced costs with private adoption where you do all your own networking and just use an attorney to file the paperwork. Here is a link to a woman from the DE board and her success story: http://www.network54.com/Forum/57451/thread/1155230798/
And there is a woman on the Rubber Ducky board who also connected with her birthmom through a friend. Her name is Softball Wife if you want to post to her.
In the beginning, our agency suggested we send our letter to all our family and friends to "get the word out" since you really never know where the link is going to come from. DH really felt uncomfortable with that idea so we did nothing. 6 months later when we decided it was time to do more of our own outreach, we sent out an Email to EVERYONE in our address book with a link to our adoption webpage. 2 wks later I get a call from an old friend with whom I barely stay in contact. Anyway, she was skiing in another state and somehow struck up a conversation with a woman in the hotel where she was staying (they were commenting on a screaming child). This other woman mentioned that her daughter was 5 mos. and wanted to place for adoption since she wanted to finish college. We were already involved in our current match, but I was amazed that word of mouth could really be so effective. Granted that placement would have been in another state so we would have had travel expenses there as well. But my point is that there are cheaper ways to do this.
OK, sorry to have rambled. Good luck to you!
Cyncie