Where in the world is Chuvashia, Russia?

Okay, so it's not as catchy as "Carmen San Diego", but it is the region that we have been assigned to. One of the steps in getting matched to a child is getting assigned to a specific region. We just found out today that Chuvashia is the region we have been assigned to. The agency sent us a fact sheet about the region that gave us a summary of its history, people, economy, and politics.

As you can imagine, we are going to be doing a lot of research about the area in the coming days. We do know that the capital city of Chuvashia is Cheboksary, which is about 400 miles southeast of Moscow. If you'd like to do your own digging, here is the link on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuvashia

Another interesting happening this week was that Brandon heard from some friends of hers who are adopting a child domestically. They were matched to a birth mother and were waiting on the birth of their child when the mother skipped town. Their agency thinks that the birthmom was shopping for a better offer outside of Texas. Apparently, Texas is pretty strict about the "benefits" that a mother can receive. They were devastated, but are pushing onward. They have to be matched all over again to a birthmom.

This is one of the reasons why we chose to adopt internationally vs. domestic. The rights in the case of a domestic adoption are very heavily weighted to the birth parents, plus there is the surprise factor that can happen on occasion (like the one above).

Domestic and International adoptions offer different experiences, challenges, and rewards. We feel we made the right decision for us because the issues with domestic adoption seemed unbearable. That doesn't mean that it's not right for other families, or that international adoption is in some way better. It's a very personal decision as to which one is right for your family.