Its a grueling slog in a good state and a fucking nightmare in a bad one. My experience with the Texas adoption system has me convinced that the entire agency is run by a collection of sadists. Feels like it exists just to traumatize people further.
The bigger problem is that it can be prohibitively expensive, which is why the 'people will just adopt unwanted children' line that anti-abortion advocates take is bullshit. They make as many barriers to adoption as possible, the biggest one being cost.
All legitimate concerns. It's definitely not the best option, or even feasible, for everyone. But it deserves more consideration than it tends to receive whenever the subject of having kids comes up.