Hi Everyone,

I am new to this and wanting to find people out there in the Visa Processing world who are seeking to bring in a Russian Fiancee. My story so far is

I met my fiancee ANNA in Yuzhno, Russia while I was working there in 2005 - 2006. I proposed to her in November 2006, came back to the U.S. to file for Fiancee Visa in December 2006. Now we wait for our reunion and the Visa approval.

- Proposed to Anna - 18 Nov 2006
- Sent I129F PETITION FOR FIANCE(E) - 18 Dec 2006
- Received at CSC - 21 Dec 2006
- CSC notification date to me - 28 Dec 2006
- Registered online with USCIS for updates - 4 Feb 2007
- Received notification of approved visa petition 15 Mar 2007
- Approved petition sent to State National Visa Center (NVC) in New Hamshire

I hope to hear from everyone out there with their expereinces. This process is such a pain but I'm trying to stay calm and happy.

Basil

Hello Basil,

Are you the guy I met in Kiev? We went with Andrew Pypko to Baba Yari? If it is this is John from Ohio. I went back to Kiev in October and got engaged to Susanna. I'm waiting for my petition to be sent to the consulate so we can schedule an interview date.

God luck with everything,

John

Basil,

Welcome to the forum! You are already well on your way to being done with this process. You're likely only a few short months away from completing the initial phase and having your fiancee receive a visa. The only things you'll have to do now are to complete and send your financial support documentation (that's kind of surprise that if you don't know about, you need to find out about here on VJ) and have her complete all the forms that will be mailed to her from the embassy. She'll also have to get a police check and a medical check (and if necessary, copies of birth/custody certificates for children and applicable divorce/death certificates for ex-husbands.) Another little thing you may not know about is a copy of the DS-3025 (Vaccination Record) that will be necessary during her AOS process after she gets here.

All that is a few weeks, if not months away, so you've got a little time to kick back, relax, and enjoy the VJ process. Stay current with things here on VJ, and use this time to build a little more "evidence" with your sweety. Send her a few hand-written letters (in Russian if you can... which, I'm assuming you can!) and cards, and some mushy stuff that she can show the C/O at her interview.

Good luck, and hope to see you on here a little more!

Welcome to the forum as well. One of the toughest part of this is once we send the packet (barring any RFE's) it is almost totally out of our hands. We can do little except watch and wait and worry and fret and worry and fret.

A lot of times everything goes as smoothly as we could hope and then we say why was I worrying so much. Slim is a great guy who gives great advice so read his post a couple of times. They do like handwritten letters a lot, English or Russian. They do like phone records a lot. I am not sure how you communicate but things like ICQ and SMS do not carry a lot of weight. I had problems with my first fiancee during the interview. I thought our thousands of SMS messages (20 a day often) would carry some weight for proof. They did want more.

During her physical have her try to get a copy of her imunization record. It can save some time and money in the USA later on.

Good luck. You are well on your way. Hopefully you will have better luck than me and fly through NVC in a few days and in just a little over two months it will all be behind you.

My advice is to be patient, its takes awhile and getting worried and overwrought will do you no good. Just relax and remember to laugh, as silly and frustrating as the system is true love is worth the work. I remember feeling scared and confused and everything all at once but it was nice once I found this forum I could read, and ask questions and get advice from people who know what Im going through. The visa process is just one small step on a path that lasts the rest of your life. Keep emailing and making phone calls, letters are good and airmail only takes a week or so. I would also suggest when you talk to your SO find other things to talk about than just the visa process. Talk to us about your frustrations, also give her your login name and password so she can see the forum etc and you two can post stuff together. Other than that, enjoy it, it will be a fun ride....

this post has been moved from the K-1 discussion group

nevermind

There are a few more things one can do. Since my wife was here with me in the States before, I got a chance to find out a little about what ... uh hem ... she doesn't like.

Like most of my furniture! So, I bought a new bedroom set. For most of the rest, she'll just have to shop with me!

Today I was out shopping, looking for some new clothes for my own birthday. (She won't be here by then.) I found nothing for me. But I bought some nice things for her! Now the question is, do I send them to her -- and keep the tracking information to send to her at interview time -- of hold onto the stuff until she arrives. I'm doing some of both. I sent her the latest parcel (with stuff for her and her grandson -- who I'm also claiming for myself since step-grandson has too many syllables!) yesterday. So probably this stuff will wait in her part of our closet.

We can't do anything about the visa process, but there are plenty of things petitioners can do to get ready for events that will change our lives (But don't whistle inside!)