TastyCake

Today i had my interview and i got approved!!!!!!I'm soooo happy, already bought tickets! I wish a good luck to everyone here🎆

Thanks Greenbaum.  I appreciate the direction... and all you do on this website.

Why am I not shocked?  And right after I booked my flight, etc.
 
I am stuck with August now.  And all because the embassy couldn't be more efficient and get calendars opened promptly.  I don't dare tell my fiancee but this is ridiculous.  Really.

Ok, first of all I never said you need to take trips every weekend and go into bankruptcy but you can't just leave her stranded day after day.  She'll be on a one-way trip back to her country in no time... and I wouldn't blame her.
 
You paint this really bleak picture of life in America.   I am not sure where you live but in my state there are several nice places to live.  If you're going to go overseas to find a wife don't bring her back here to live in Stalag 17.
 
And if the woman is from the city, don't bring her to Bumpkus Falls and say 'tough luck'.  This woman left heart and home to be with you because you are ostensibly the love of her life.  Consider changing your living arrangements so the woman has a snowball's chance in hell of enjoying her life while the paperwork stuff works itself out.
 
When I hear a man say you shouldn't spoil your woman when my point is to  help her assimilate, that to me is a problem.  You're in the fast lane to divorce court with that attitude.
 
I relocated to a place near a cute town center with some cafes, restaurants, a little shopping.  She does yoga and Pilates and there are places for this in town.  All are within walking distance.
 
I have researched festivals, fairs and other events that I can take her to throughout the year.  We will certainly grab some dinner at a restaurant on the weekends as a treat.
 
Will there be some bumps and bouts of homesickness?  You bet.  But my lady isn't going to be under any form of 'house arrest' as long as there is breath in me.
 

Ok, first of all I never said you need to take trips every weekend and go into bankruptcy but you can't just leave her stranded day after day.  She'll be on a one-way trip back to her country in no time... and I wouldn't blame her.
 
You paint this really bleak picture of life in America.   I am not sure where you live but in my state there are several nice places to live.  If you're going to go overseas to find a wife don't bring her back here to live in Stalag 17.
 
And if the woman is from the city, don't bring her to Bumpkus Falls and say 'tough luck'.  This woman left heart and home to be with you because you are ostensibly the love of her life.  Consider changing your living arrangements so the woman has a snowball's chance in hell of enjoying her life while the paperwork stuff works itself out.
 
When I hear a man say you shouldn't spoil your woman when my point is to  help her assimilate, that to me is a problem.  You're in the fast lane to divorce court with that attitude.
 
I relocated to a place near a cute town center with some cafes, restaurants, a little shopping.  She does yoga and Pilates and there are places for this in town.  All are within walking distance.
 
I have researched festivals, fairs and other events that I can take her to throughout the year.  We will certainly grab some dinner at a restaurant on the weekends as a treat.
 
Will there be some bumps and bouts of homesickness?  You bet.  But my lady isn't going to be under any form of 'house arrest' as long as there is breath in me.
 

Ok, I did it.  I just pulled the trigger.  I found a halfway decent fare for a round trip to Kiev for the embassy interview.  I was thinking I had a better chance of looking hot in a bikini than I did scoring an earlier embassy interview so I have my flight locked in.  This means I ain't changin' even if something were to open up at the embassy.
 
This may bode well for the rest of you.  Now that I have locked myself into an airplane reservation, I think there's a pretty decent chance June and July appointments will start opening up like a Catholic in a confessional.  It's the story of my life.  So keep your eyes open but don't tell me about it if you're successful.  🙉🙉🙉

Ok, I did it.  I just pulled the trigger.  I found a halfway decent fare for a round trip to Kiev for the embassy interview.  I was thinking I had a better chance of looking hot in a bikini than I did scoring an earlier embassy interview so I have my flight locked in.  This means I ain't changin' even if something were to open up at the embassy.
 
This may bode well for the rest of you.  Now that I have locked myself into an airplane reservation, I think there's a pretty decent chance June and July appointments will start opening up like a Catholic in a confessional.  It's the story of my life.  So keep your eyes open but don't tell me about it if you're successful.  🙉🙉🙉

We have assembled all documents already.  I even have my I-134 now (the last that had to be put together).  She got a fresh biometric passport in February that's good for 10 years.  We're already planning for when she arrives (got several things set up already) but that doesn't take 2+ months.
 
She has no driver's license and has never driven in her life.  She won't be getting one before our arrival.  I have to warm her up to driving over time.  MA drivers kill the weak and eat the wounded so this may not be an activity until after we relocate to the much calmer northern New England (among our future plans).
 
I'm retiring in a countable number of years.  She has no plans to work.  We're beyond the 'schooling' part of our lives (which is why the 'hurry up and wait' nonsense is even more frustrating... we ain't gettin' any younger).
 
Bottom line is we are just waiting and really for no good reason.  I think there's something irregular going on over there at the embassy... I just don't know what it is.  And if history is any indicator (when it comes to my experience with this visa process), dollars to donuts suddenly Kiev will be accommodating interviews in 1-3 weeks again ONE DAY after my fiancee arrives in America.

Good question.  Try completing the DS-160 and pay the fee.  Then, if you haven't already done so, try creating your online account at the State Department website and see if it will let you schedule an appointment.  I think the DS-160 and paying the fee are probably the things the embassy cares about the most.
 
Paying the fee is a biggie.  Have your sweetheart pay at the nearest Raiffeisen branch and get the receipt.  Once she has the receipt in hand, tell her to take a snapshot of it and send it to you in Viber (or whatever you use for communication) so you have a copy as well.  Someone on this board mentioned that to me and it was great peace of mind.  Suppose your sweetie were to lose it accidentally?  Ask her to ask the teller/bank employee to identify what is exactly the receipt number.  In our situation, the teller/bank employee underlined it for us.
 
I believe the format of the receipt number is:  sweetheart's birth date in ddmmyy format followed by the transaction date, also in ddmmyy format, followed by time of day in hhmmss format.
 
For example (birthdate is January 15, 1981, transaction date is June 10, 2019, time of day is 11:15 am and 28 seconds):
150181100619111528
 

Update:  I scheduled my appointment.  August.  Nothing earlier.  I am still beside myself that there is such a wait time these days when only a month or two ago people could get an appointment the next stinking day if they wanted.  What changed?  Ask the embassy and they don't offer any answers.  I really would like to know why.  I can't imagine there was some sudden influx of people scheduling appointments.  All June?  All July?  Nothing?
 
Anyway, a bit of advice if you lock your account due to excessive activity and have not yet scheduled your appointment.  They will tell you 24-72 hours and your account will unlock.  In the meantime, call them to schedule your appointment.  If you get someone who tells you they can't schedule an appointment if your account is locked this is not true.  Just keep calling back until you get someone who will do it.

Shipping is probably cost prohibitive.  Paying an extra $100 or so for another bag or two when you fly (assuming that's big enough for you) may be the better way to go.  Also, if you ship packages I am not sure for how long it would get held up at Customs.  I know if you ship things from the U.S. to the E.U. countries they have a good ol' time on the other side of the pond sifting through your stuff looking for anything taxable and I'm sure we reciprocate.  Ukraine is not part of the E.U. but it may be a similar situation but I'm not sure.
 
Although I haven't flown them before,  if Turkish Air flies anywhere near you I understand they have a liberal baggage policy and you may not have to pay for that second bag (and that applies to a second bag per person, I believe).  Turkish Air flies to my area so they are on my bucket list for these last few flights.

Clearly we are not being provided any guidance that this is even a possibility.  And when we reach the max and we attempt to log in, we're told invalid username/password as if we're entering the wrong thing.  What we should be getting is something telling us we reached the max logins for the day.  Once the next day happens (12:01 am), the count should start over.  Not 72 hours (weekend or no weekend).
 
It would also be useful if we were advised on each successful login when we are 3...2... 1 times away from reaching our daily max.  I have been in IT for 30 years and it would not be a huge effort to build in this intelligence.
 
To have people unwittingly freezing their accounts, especially when all they are trying to do is validate a payment cleared, is not a very good user experience.  Doing this also taxes your phone staff because now they must field calls for appointments, etc. because people can't get into their accounts.

Ok, I ran some reporting tools for Ukraine petitioners who have had an interview date entered in their timeline.  I went back one year and only found maybe 2 or 3 who had to wait longer than a month (from the time the consulate received the case from the NVC to the reported interview date).
 
For the aforementioned '2 or 3', these people could have miskeyed their interview date.  Or maybe they got it right but their wait was extended due to personal circumstances.  One was something like a 3 month wait.  I have to think that fell under special circumstances.  Or it was a miskey.  Pretty much all other petitioners had their interview in the 1-3 week timeframe.
 
Furthermore, I did a search of 2018 spring/summer petitioners (i.e. those people whose cases were received by the consulate in May, June, July and August of 2018) and found similar results so there didn't appear to be a summer staffing issue last year that created longer durations.
 
I will contact the embassy in Kiev on Monday.  It could be something strange happened like 1/2 the staff played the lottery recently AND WON!  Otherwise, I have to believe the calendar is not fully updated for the month of June and/or July.  Stranger things have happened.
 

My fiancee is paying Raiffeisen tomorrow (her local branch is open 10 am - 2 pm on Saturdays) so we can't book any appointments until the payment registers with the embassy.  That may not be until Monday so, when I wake up Monday morning, you can bet I will be on the phone with the embassy to clarify things.  If we truly have to wait until August, we will book our appointment on Monday for that month.  However, I think something is wrong or things are not updated in the embassy calendar.  Here is why I think this.
 
I ran some reporting tools for Ukraine petitioners who have had an interview date entered in their timeline.  I went back one year and only found maybe 2 or 3 who had to wait longer than a month (from the time the consulate received the case from the NVC to the reported interview date).
 
For the aforementioned '2 or 3', these people could have miskeyed their interview date.  Or maybe they got it right but their wait was extended due to personal circumstances.  One was something like a 3 month wait.  I have to think that fell under special circumstances.  Or it was a miskey.  Pretty much all other petitioners had their interview in the 1-3 week timeframe.
 
Furthermore, I did a search of 2018 spring/summer petitioners (i.e. those people whose cases were received by the consulate in May, June, July and August of 2018) and found similar results so there didn't appear to be a summer staffing issue last year that created longer durations.
 
I will contact the embassy in Kiev on Monday.  It could be something strange happened like 1/2 the staff played the lottery recently AND WON!  Otherwise, I have to believe something is not right (or updated) in their system.  Perhaps their calendar is not fully updated for the month of June and/or July.  Stranger things have happened.
 

Will do!  🙂  Thanks for all you do on this website.

For Ukraine petitioners in the 5/28 NVC shipment:
 
DHL has officially delivered to the embassy... about an hour earlier than usual (based on previous four deliveries).  Soon we will have our emails from the embassy and can start paying the fee, schedule the medical exam and embassy interview (as long as you already completed your DS-160, of course).

For Ukraine petitioners in the 5/28 NVC shipment:
 
DHL has officially delivered to the embassy... about an hour earlier than usual (based on previous four deliveries).  Soon we will have our emails from the embassy and can start paying the fee, schedule the medical exam and embassy interview (as long as you already completed your DS-160, of course).