2nd time around with K-1 (This time the petitioner)

[stronger 43]

So, as many people, I have been married before. Almost 16 years ago, when I was 18, I met someone who traveled for a living. When I was 22 we were engaged and began the K-1 process. This was in 1999. And things were faster and much smoother than. Pre 9/11 of course. I was a Canadian Citizen, and he was America. After 9 years of marriage and a beautiful little girl, we felt it best to go our separate ways. He was also away on business and I believe marrying too young had a huge part in the end of the relationship. However, we are still very close and good friends. I eventually applied for my citizenship and now I'm an American Citizen!

Then last year, without looking, I met my love Tolga. Again, he is far away in Turkey. Another long distance relationship. When he proposed, I of course said yes. But with this also came a huge decision on "am I ready for this long road again?". The answer is yes, he is worth it. And I have been through this process before. Though, not as the petitioner, and not in these harder political times.

What I am getting at, is I feel I am able to handle the wait better this time, knowing what the journey is like. The distance and waiting is something I became accustomed to due to my previous long term relationship. Is this a strange statement? I don't know. Yes I have my down days, a few tears shed and I miss my love like crazy. I have a busy life in the meantime...but I cannot wait for my baby to be with us here.

I am ready...I am excited...and in it for the long haul

Good luck everyone!

~ Sabrina

[brettdresseur 0]

Good luck. I know what you mean as my husband has worked abroad for the duration of our relationship so it was always waiting, waiting, waiting. On the upside though, I think having a significant other working outside their country of residence prepares the spouse left behind for this process better. In our case, the hubby is an officer on a ship so even if we received our NOA2 a month after we mailed our I-130 (like that has ever happened ) we would still have to wait. As a result, I've been super patient and just go about my business since we have to work around his schedule more than USCIS/NVC/Embassy.

I don't think I could have handled it if I was able to see him every few weeks and then be on "lockdown" until this process was over.

Also gather all the documents you need now because the time it took for us to go from NOA1-NOA2 (just shy of 4 months) lulled me into thinking that the NVC process would be just as slow. It wasn't, thankfully, but I was still scrambling a bit once I realized that I had to send the documents off instead of waiting for the NVC to send me something in the mail.

[stronger 43]

Thanks for the words of support. Being apart from your love is never easy. But it sure forces you to know them better. I hope all goes smoothly for you in the interview process. If you don't mind me asking. What was the RFE for?

[brettdresseur 0]

Sorry I just saw this. The rfe was for something I know we had in the packet, his passport information. I know we included it but when I talked to the person at NVC they said it would just be faster to resend the info because if he put in a request we would have to wait 20 days for the check and then another 20 days to review the information. They said that we could scan the info and email it and we did and received an email the following day confirming that they received the information.

I did have to call NVC 3 times though because the first operator said that we could scan and email the info, the second one said we couldn't and the third one said we could but wanted to check with his supervisor.

Word of advice, learn what you will to send to NVC before you get your NOA2 because the NVC stage goes quite fast compared to the USCIS stage.

[stronger 43]

Thanks for the reply. No worries. It's amazing what I see RFE's for. I didn't overload the secondary evidence. Just a few examples of each type of communication. But sent all receipts, stubs, passport stamps and hotel receipts. Maybe 10 photos of us together.. Pictures with notes drawn for Ella by Tolga. I don't know that they would read my hundreds of emails and chats. I think they skim through it anyway. It's so stressful to go through the packet you've already sent and ask yourself if you might have forgotten anything. Just hoping to get past this stage quickly. I've already initiated my police check in Canada. It can take a few months to get back.