[Amysue1112]

Some agencies don't give you a region...I guess they sort of have your name is many regions. Some agencies work in a lot of regions, but choose one for you.
For us, our agency works in 10 regions, but we know as soon as our dossier is sent what region we are going to. We/they picked the region that works best for us (easy medical forms (since I have some med history etc, American/adoption friendly). We have been able to learn a lot about the culture/people of the region, and it has been great. We knew before our dossier went to Kemerovo that it was a longer wait, but it was worth it for us. I am not sure how fast referrals come when you are with an agency that does not give you a specific region. Really, as so many have said before, I am not sure there is any rhyme or reason to the way referrals are given out in some regions. We are in such a transitional time right now, as our agencies have been waiting for re-accreditations....so I think it would be hard to gauge how this will affect referrals. For example, I am pretty sure there are some regions that were not working at all during the problems/re-accreditations issues in Russia. So of course, regions that were working well (like ours) became very back logged. Now that there are more regions that will be back up to speed, hopefully our waiting list will go down. Most are pretty sure that everything in the adoption process will speed up now. YIPPEEE for ALL of us!!!
Amy