Darkmoonfaerie

Just an FYI - I have just tried calling :
NVC: 803-334-0700 Press 1 for English
Hours: Monday-Friday from 7:00 AM to midnight (EST).
Best time to call is 7:30 AM to 9:00 AM or 10:00 PM to midnight.
And got "Hi you've got someone's text plus texting number. To get your own texting number...blah blah"
I've checked the number three times and keep getting the same recording.
EDIT: The OP listed the wrong number. I got the number from the DOS and it's area code 603, not 803

As a natural health care practitioner, the vaccine requirements kill me too. I do not get vaccines and hate that my soon-to-be-family will be getting them (especially the same vaccine that caused lifetime injuries to me at age 18). I have heard there's a waiver, but it adds months to your process, and that there is a good chance they will deny the waiver. It's hard to get a waiver for vaccines in most states, so it's understandable that it would be worse on the federal level. I do understand why the US has the requirement, and am looking at it as a small hurdle to get into the country. Once he and the kids are here, we'll discuss what we'll do with the family going forward. If he wants to continue to vaccinate him and his boys for life, then it's a decision I will agree with. But I'll continue to laugh at the health department every year when they call me asking if I've had my flu shot

Best advice! We did this and just kinda went about life. It was the best decision we could have made. I checked USCIS daily or every few days and chatted with my month board on here but didn't obsess. It saved us a LOT of stress!

How ling does it take? A long time.Stop looking at statistics. Stop looking at time lines. Stop looking at anything. Just get up, go about your business and, wham..it will be finished.

"On October 2, 2012, we ordered production of your new card."
I'm crying like a baby!

Today started out one of the worst I've had in a whlie. I spent from 10am-2pm at the emergency room with a bladder infection that I didn't know I had till the pain knocked me out when I got up this morning. I came home all drugged up and just crashed. Woke up around 6pm and thought "hmm I didn't check USCIS today".....OMG WE GOT NOA2!!! Alan and I had a little freak out giddy moment then ran to tell our families. Now I can take my pain meds and crash to have happy dreams :dance: (oww, ok no dancing right now)

I have to say your're the first person Ive seen on here miffed at the fact your visa process has ran smoothly and fast!!!! I bet many of us would be over the moon to be in your position,anyway.....the CR1 does take longer and you dont have as many restrictions when you arrive in the US,that being said its only a few months difference,this process is so messed up you could file the CR1 and wait a year or you could be mega lucky again and only have to wait 5 months!!!
Its going to cost you alot of $ and Im not sure if reapplying would cause you issues in the future should the CR1 go to fast for you too and you decide to postpone. Are you both out of the US at the moment? Was you hoping to travel then move over together?

The problem is, you might NOT have "the best chance possible" by hiring an attorney, this is a common misconception.
Basically you're hiring someone to fill in the forms, after YOU give them all the info that they ask for. You are not their only client and they will not move on your case with extreme speed. You will most likely find small typos in your documents that cause you to stress out, you'll find they delay you because your case is not the most important case to them, like it is to you.
The forms are pretty simple. The instructions are a little confusing sometimes but as long as you answer the questions to the "best of your knowledge", which is all anyone can ask, then you have no need to stress.
If at some point you find you need an attorney, hire one. If you want to hire one now, hire one. I wouldn't personally if you don't think you have any red-flags, but it's a totally personal choice.

You haven't finished high school, and neither one of you can support yourselves, let alone the other person and any children that may come around. Please consider waiting. If the relationship is meant to b at so young an age, it will survive until you are both in better positions.

I don't want to start here a discussion about the medical advantages or detriments of vaccinations. There are better places to discuss that (i.e. www.mercola.com). However one basic fact about vaccination seems to be misunderstood here by few posters claiming the requirement is to protect United States citizens from infectious deseases. If a foreign citizen caries an infection with her/him the vaccination will not heal that desease, it would be too late for that. Vaccination only protects during the time after not before. So if the person enters US after the vaccination those vaccines can only protect her/him from getting infected by US citizens.
The worst part with this requirement regardless if good or bad is that it chips on ones personal rights. It trains future US citizens to give up their rights right at the very begin by harassing them with lengthy processing times if they try execute their rights.

I have a feeling that Mrs TB has a good sense of humor

I think the OP is looking for some kind of loophole to get her fiancé to the US permanently without spending time apart. So she thought marriage would put him in the fast lane to skip immigration procedures. If there was an easy way to skip all immigration, it would be published in giant red letters and the thousands of whining posts about how sad/mad everyone is wouldn't exist.
You can visit him in the UK up to 6 months if the officer at the airport puts that on your entry. He can give lesser time. Your fiancé can visit you in the US up to 90 days at a time. If you marry in Scotland, then you start over and pay again and get in line from the beginning of a slightly longer process.
Some people decide to marry in the US while the Scot is visiting on visa waiver holiday. Then he doesn't leave and a petition and adjustment of status are filed concurrently. He will be overstaying his 90 days. Often it goes well. If it goes badly and is denied, there is no appeal. He won't be allowed to use visa waiver for a long time because he overstayed. He may get a ban from the US if his overstay was a long time and the AOS was denied in the end. He can't work in the US immediately or leave the US until he gets his greencard for fear he won't get back in. People get a greencard this way, but it's a little risky and you better get it right. I am not advocating this but just telling what some do. There is a separate forum for people who adjust status from work, student, or tourist visas, so ask over there. Everybody in this UK forum is getting a proper visa from the embassy in London so don't have much experience to share if you start circumventing immigration procedures.

That's quite a sweeping generalisation you have there.

Having been a teacher, I don't agree if you are blaming under-performance on the teachers. I've been the white teacher in an all black ghetto school and taught the richest kids in town at another. There's a lot more to it than the teacher.

You're from the UK. You entered into a bona fide marriage, right?
You'll be approved. Get on with your life.You have the I-797 extending the GC for a year. You can travel and work and EVERYTHING you could do before you started ROC. Sometimes ROC is fast and sometimes so slow people apply for citizenship before it's approved. Blame Obama if you like but frankly you look a little silly doing so.
If you really want to move back to the UK, be mindful that the rules for immigrant spouses have changed recently. Lots of info here: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/372449-before-you-permanently-move-to-the-us/
Good luck, and be patient.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself here, but need to have some information to present to the courts (to bring my fiance's kids here) regarding processing times on a few things. I think I have this right but just wanted to run it by the great minds here
We file AP, EAD and AOS at the same time. AOS is processed by our local USCIS field office -in my case Boston. EAD and AP are processed by VSC or CSC. Is this correct?

tommorrow is tuesaday lets hope the adjucators are happy they had a 3 days weekend and we see many approvals good luck everyone tomorrow.!!!

I agree with most of what you said but someone can show only “the part they want you to see” whether that relationship started online or offline. It's not true that “of course” you only know part of a person that you meet online. There are often relationships that were founded offline where the couple didn’t really know each other but thought they did and entered into a marriage. Just like a relationship with a foreigner needs more effort and work than a domestic relationship, so does an online relationship needs more work and attention [i'm talking specifically about the ones started online] than an offline one. But it doesn't mean you can't know the person you are spending time with. Skype, wireless internet, mobile phone internet, computer screen sharing and all this new technology allow people to "practically" be with a person met online. It does require a lot of time with a computer to make this kind of relationship work and be successful, so it is not for everyone.
My husband and I dated online for an entire year before we met in real life and later we got married and we are now living together. I didn't find out any "surprises" about him once we could ditch the computers, nor did I find out any surprises since I've been living with him fulltime. He's the same man, through and through, because I gave lotsssssss of time to our online relationship and so did he. We used to sleep on Skype at night, cook/study/watch tv (everything!) in front of Skype in the daytime, and shared all computer/internet info with each other. We made videos of our life when we couldn't spend it on the computer so we could see how the other lived daily. People think it's weird but that's what we needed to do to make it work. This all was despite random/sometimes scheduled rolling blackouts. I can only imagine the time you can spend with someone online if you have no rolling blackouts to deal with and/or live closer in time zones. Relationships all need different strategies based on the type (domestic, international, online, offline, etc). International relationships have their differences from domestic ones, just like online relationships have their differences from offline ones. Family and friends have been teaching, sharing, and warning about "normal" domestic relationships, so when any of us are entering into a international relationship we are experiencing something we may never have been told or warned about. The same is true for online relationships and more so for online AND international ones. The bottom line is that all relationships need time, attention, and care in order to be successful (and sometimes still don't work out!) but the things you need to pay attention to are different depending on the type of relationship you have. Starting a relationship online doesn't mean you are automatically limited in knowing the other person and that success is more difficult for you to obtain. In ANY relationship, if you don't give it the quality time and attention it requires, success is going to be more difficult for you. A successful relationship is not about where that person is from or where you developed your relationship or how MUCH time you spent together, but about how WELL you got to know that other person.
The number of weeks, months, years you spend with someone (whether offline or online) doesn’t matter if both of you were not working on and developing your relationship in that time.

Oh they all have an agenda all right.. My wife's was to be with her burnin' hunk-o-love full time

I am so sorry this happened to you and I hope you will be able to heal quickly.
But If you think this is an international marriage problem only, then you are mistaken.
This kind of thing happens domestically everyday.

Just got off the phone with USCIS. Took me forever to get a person and got the same old 02/06 processing BS line. She said it is based on which person gets your file. I'm more confused now than ever...

Thanks so much Vermont Service Center for inducting me into the 200 Club. I'm grateful to VSC who has sat on my petition for 200 days now with not so much as an RFE or an approval. Without their lack of work and lack of dedication I might have been approved on time or even *gasp* early and therefore not have had the pleasure of induction into this club. An honor like this only happens to a few fine people here at Visa Journey, so I realize that having this honor is a once in a lifetime (hopefully) opportunity. I'll await my golden immigration USCIS representative statue that's coming in the mail, complete with royal purple sash that reads "200 club", and letter confirming my lifetime membership and stating that they are still working on my petition and it's on someone's desk.
To all the new folks out there asking...Mary....how do you do it? How did you get to where you are today??!
I'd say...
A lot of hard work on my part kiddies, and absolutely no work on theirs. THAT'S how you get where I am today. Yes, you too CAN be like me if you do everything you were asked, write every Congressperson and Senator in your district, wait patiently, and pay your fee that they gladly cashed 6 1/2 months ago. I'll be here to welcome you when you get inducted.
Thanks again, VSC. I'll never forget you.

There is nothing wrong with maybe getting married and then applying for CR-1. NOTHING. What's fishy is the situation of entering on VWP with the intent to maybe adjust status. So personally I didn't and wouldn't do it. But marrying and applying for spousal visa, 100% ok.
Lol this is the one bad thing about being a good responsible person who researches everything online. Sometimes it is better not to know so much.
Anyhow, look forward to helping you in the future once you've applied for one petition or the other :-) Have a safe trip!

BTW, Medicare rates are much better then negotiated rates or other insurance rates. Medicaid rates are even better then Medicare. So consider yourself lucky. I know it, I am in the healthcare industry...

LOL Que Saudade is not alone. I only entered the thread to see if anyone else responded because they were thinking the same thing I was at first.
Yes, it's normal. Our case had no updates until the day we got our petition approved.