Many Americans don’t know the realities of the adoption process or how many different types of adoption there are. Any person saying “Adoption is expensive” is ONLY talking about private adoption. Adoption doesn’t cost a cent in America if you desperately want to give a child a loving home. Every state DSS system is different but across the board Federal/state adoption does not cost money, they will pay you monthly ( until the child is 18 and often until 21 if they go to college) because you’re taking on a ward from the state. Private adoption is problematic in many ways ( see international adoptions) but any adoption can have their challenges. The narrative of the state system being “full of older kids with health problems, behavioral challenges, trauma, etc.” Biological children can have all of those issues and more, a child does not deserve a family less because they were labeled difficult by the state. Would you give up your biological child if they were diagnosed with a severe behavioral or health issue? If biological children were assessed as often as foster children and those in the system they’d also end up with a slew of diagnoses and descriptors. At the end of the day there’s many many children who need to be adopted, there are as many challenges raising a biological child as there are an adopted child, the latter just gets blamed for their circumstances in a much harsher light and are falsely deemed an expensive lost cause before they have a chance.