US Immigration from Sweden

My spouse is a company (restaurant) owner and last year invested a large sum to the company when they made renovations. Then the COVID-19 hit and the place was not fully operating last year... So there were large investments but not that much sales as the place was closed until September.

Now things are back to "normal" and the place is making a good profit. My spouse is taking a distribution of $33,000 (annually) which is above the poverty line. However, the last year's tax refund is negative.

What are your thoughts about this case? Do we have any hope that they would understand this case?

I am currently abroad with no possibility to return to the US before the biometrics appointment for my I-751 petition, so I have contacted the USCIS Contact Center about this, and got the generic "Non-emergency = we'll get back to you in 14 days" e-mail. However, that two weeks is up today, and the supposed appointment at ASC is up in only a couple of days. Yet, I am still to receive any kind of callback or e-mail from a Tier 2 officer. The only time I've been wanting to be woken up in the middle of my deepest sleep!

Knowing how prone USCIS is to making booboos, I do not believe that talking with Tier 1 for a couple of minutes would be enough in that all the information I mentioned is input in my file. I've been stressing a lot over my I-751 being denied because of this, and my anxiety isn't really getting any better since USCIS hasn't bothered to call back (yes, I've got my US SIM card with me abroad since apparently they don't call foreign numbers?).

Does anyone have insight as to what I should do? Should I call back the Contact Center and request to talk to a supervisor (IIRC USCIS website says this is possible when talking to a Tier 1 or Tier 2) since my time is running out. Any other ways to remedy the situation?

My husband and I are considering traveling to California around October. We want some time off together and he has vacation left, so we started talking about it. We might not go either way and just stay around Chicago instead, but this just got me thinking...

How do you best plan a trip when you're in the middle of this process? How far in advance do you usually get the appointment for the interview (especially in Chicago in case it's different depending on where you live!)? And how about biometrics (also specifically for Chicago in case this can be different as well!)?

My guess is that biometrics would be way before October (but then again who knows with Covid...) and that the interview will be way after October. But I just want to make sure that they don't send you an appointment and then you have to be there only one or two weeks after and there's a risk of missing the appointment letter in the mail in case you're on vacation. If that's the case it's just not worth the risk. But if you tend to get information about your appointments ahead of time it wouldn't be an issue...

In case a joint sponsor or the petitioner did not make enough money in the last tax report but is making now this year, the instructions say that we should submit payslips from last 6 months and a letter from an employer. Where can we download these documents and when should we do it?

Our CR1 and CR2 were approved and sent to the NVC. We (the spouse and stepchild) both received different case numbers and have own accounts.

1) Should we continue completing everything separately and thus the petitioner should download two different 213A forms? Also the joint sponsor would fill in two separate forms?

2) When and how can we ask the NVC to "keep our cases together"?

Thanks in advance.