Mast, as others have said, adoptions in the US are regulated on a State by State basis. In their State, they are going through a private agency. They are not allowed to give the woman any money at all, not even for the birth expenses, which seems wrong to me. The birth mother is on public assistance, so she is not actually out of pocket, but ... In my State, we can do private adoptions just as individual to individual things. For instance, a client signed over guardianship of her children to a relative. After a number of years, they did an adoption proceeding where the mom voluntarily relinquished her rights and the dad had his parental rights involuntarily terminated for failure to contact or support the kids. There was no State or private agency involved.

On the other hand, if the dad had not been clearly unfit to be a parent, he could have gotten the kids back no matter how long they had been with the guardians, and no matter how much better their lives would be with the guardians. In our State, that kind of case came up and the State Supreme Court said that parents have a constitutional right to possession of their children, even if they have gone years without seeing them, and even if the children are clearly better off with the guardians. In our State, children are still basically chattel, and you can give them away if you want, and you can get them back even if you have given them to someone else, as long as you are not declared unfit before the adoption goes through.