Julie-Mc

These are some fast calculations I made (maybe some numbers are not exactly correct):
Movement this fiscal year so far = 433 days
Quarter 1 = 123 days
Quarter 2 = 153 days
Quarter 3 = 141 days
Quarter 4 (in progress) = 16 days
Now what do I make of that? The movement was similar on the first 3 quarters. Not sure what will happen on the fourth one though.

Retrogression means that the priority dates are moving backwards, instead of forward. On January 2011's VB there was a retrogression, all family-based categories moved backwards. For example, for F1 the PD was 15-FEB-06, it moved back to 01-JAN-05, then back again to 01-MAY-04. It stayed like that (no movement) for a few months, until it started moving forward again on October 2011's VB.

Check the link sunny posted. Here's an extract:
(F1) Unmarried Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens
(F2A) Spouses and Children of Permanent Residents
(F2B) Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21 years of age or older) of Permanent Residents
(F3) Married Sons and Daughters of U.S. Citizens
(F4) Brothers and Sisters of Adult U.S. Citizens
You're F1. And there's no F1A category as far as I know.

The next step is to wait for a visa number to become available to you. The visa number becomes available to you when your Priority Date (PD) becomes current.
The current PD changes every month, so you need to check for the most current one; http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_1360.html
For Nov. 2011, the current PD for the F-1 category (US citizen petitioning an unmarried child) is 22JUL04. This means a visa number is available if your PD is on July 22, 2004, or before.
Your PD is Jan. xx, 2006. There is no way to predict when your PD will be current. Generally, you can expect to hear from the NVC in about a year to continue the process.

no need to look at those timelines, that's the estimation of the i130 approval, yours is already approved. you've already passed the uscis service center stage. now you have to wait until your priority date becomes current for the second part of the consular processing part at the NVC.

you have to check every month the visa bulletin for your priority date to become current, no one exactly knows how long it can take. what country are you from?
www.travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulletin_5572.html
you already got noa 1 and 2. noa 1 was the receipt notice of the i130, noa 2 was the approval for the i130. that was before it was sent to NVC.

We need more specific information in order to advise but if it's timelines, you can never really tell for sure.
What you need to specify is:
- your priority date if you already have one (I think you do based on your statement)
- your family based preference (F1, F2A, F2B, etc)
- what is the latest mail that you have received? NOA1, NOA2, etc.
- Is it USCIS or NVC processing now?