Of course, there are also the illegal/black market adoptions; I've known a couple people who were adopted illegally; someone just "gives" their child to someone else for money or just because they can't afford them, etc. Nowadays one gets one's Social Security number immediately after being born so maybe that's an effort to better control what happens to babies, the question of how come this child doesn't have a SSN could be raised. That was weird starting my grandchildren's 529 college savings plan when they were only hours old.