Adoption without an agency?

My husband and I would like to adopt a child as we are not able to have our own. We both have good jobs and a nice house in the country but we don't really have the amount of cash lying around needed to go through an agency. We took the cles DHS offers and have had calls to place children in our home but always with the possibility of them going back to their biological families. I was wondering if anyone had adopted another way and if you wouldn't mind sharing the details.