I wanted to share the good news!
Today is a happy day... we have our visa (or will after we pick it up on Friday)! Reading other posts was helpful along the way and I wanted to say thank you to everyone! This group is SUPER supportive and has been an great source of useful information.Here is our story, I hope you can take something from it. The biggest thing I have learned in the DCF process is that every country is different. This is our DCF "journey".
January thru April we started requesting documents and completed the several steps of the physical exam
April 12th-mailed I-130 and supporting documents to Embassy (no fee was requested at this time)
April 13th- Embassy emailed me to say "everything looked fine" scheduled an interview for May 2nd.
April 16th- request for a copy of benif. passport and DS230 part 1 and 2
We were never mailed ANYTHING from the embassy or asked to submit more docs other than those just listed. I had to email the embassy and ask what docs I should bring to the interview.
May 2nd: Our interview, payment of fees and Approval!
Details of our interview for those interested!
Our interview was scheduled for 9:00am. We showed up early, went through security and enter a waiting area. A woman who'd I been in contact via email and phone many times before called me to the window (I guess she recognized me from the photo) and asked for our paperwork. I handed her everthing, photos, and she asked us to pay the fee. We paid $570 total, this was one payment for everything.
She looked over the docs and called me back to the window. I had filled out the wrong affidavit of support. (How this happend... I DON"T KNOW!). I was really nervous because I am a student and my father had to fill out a joint sponsor form and his must have been wrong too. I filled out the new document and nothing more was said.
In less than 10 minutes we were called to the window for our "interview". The woman was SUPER NICE! She smiled, laughed and even joked with us. She took my husbands finger prints and began asking questions about how we met, were we moved, what we were doing in Norway. What we would do in the States (workwise). She asked if either my husband or I had jobs linned up. Our answers were no. She made a reference to my father being the joint sponsor and that was it. It took less than 10 minutes. She told me everything was approved and explained what happens at the point of entry. It was great to hear "you have your permenant residence card, you can work right away!"
She told us they could have it ready for us today but since we aren't headed to the U.S. until mid-June we let them know we could pick it up later. They said they could mail it to us but we didn't feel comfortable.
Our experience was smooth and everyone was very helpful at the Embassy along the way!
