Lauren Y

Late to the party, but my husband DQ'ed Feb 16 and has an interview for August 9!! 🎉  That was such a hard 5 month wait. Thank you to the people that started this forum as it has been so helpful to us. Hoping timelines will improve for those still waiting! xx

Late to the party, but my husband DQ'ed Feb 16 and has an interview for August 9!! 🎉  That was such a hard 5 month wait. Thank you to the people that started this forum as it has been so helpful to us. Hoping timelines will improve for those still waiting! xx

Late to the party, but my husband DQ'ed Feb 16 and has an interview for August 9!! 🎉  That was such a hard 5 month wait. Thank you to the people that started this forum as it has been so helpful to us. Hoping timelines will improve for those still waiting! xx

Aaah. Yay. 
I can’t believe I’m writing this. 
18.5. months, 1 daughter and a LOT of tears later, my CR1 visa has finally been APPROVED. 🎉 
 

🌟 My interview day summary: may be helpful especially if you have kids! 
On Monday morning, I flew with my 10 month old daughter from Belfast to London Gatwick. 
 
My interview date was the day after, we arrived at the Embassy at around 8:30, my interview wasn’t until 9, lol. We walked around the building once to calm my nerves and then went to the “Visa Services” entrance to see if it was too early or not to enter. The lady was super helpful, asked for my passport and appointment letter, stamped my letter and told me to go to the front of the queue as I seemed to be the only other Immigrant Visa applicant amidst a lot of Non Immigrant applicants.   
 
When I got in there, I was asked for my appointment letter again, given a ticket and asked to go up the elevator to the 1st floor. I sat in front of windows 20-24 (for Immigrant Visas).
 
We waited only 5 minutes to be called to the first window. A helpful man asked for my passport, birth certificate, marriage certificate, police certificate and 1 of my visa photographs. Then I scanned my fingerprints. He asked a few questions;
* “Is this your first marriage?”
* “Is this your husbands daughter?” - to which I responded by asking if he wanted to see her birth certificate, he didn’t and said “no, don’t worry”
* “When do you want to travel?” - I explained that our daughter is 1 soon and hopefully before then. He encouragingly said, “Oh, you’ll definitely be able to make that work.” This calmed me as he kind of was confirming that there weren’t going to be any issues with my visa lol. 
 
We sat down again, this time waiting for about 20 minutes. My daughter was hungry (I had to nurse her in the embassy and had no unpleasantness from anyone - thankfully.) She also decided that she was a little grumpy at this point because her morning nap matched up with my appointment time (Mom life lol). Of course, this is also the time that we were called for the second time. 
 
We went to a different window. Was asked to raise my right hand and take an oath, then scan my right hand fingerprints again. At this point, my daughter was tired and bored. The lady was SO lovely and literally said, “everything looks good here, I don’t want to make life anymore difficult for you.” She asked me where I met my husband, told me we needed to get her CRBA, I told her we already had and asked would she like to see it. She said no and told me that was great. 
She gave me a form about domestic violence to read and crossed out points regarding marriage fraud on the back, telling me they didn’t apply to me. She used the words, “ok well if you have a read of this and everything seems ok to you, you’re good to go. Keep an eye on your CEAC tracker for delivery updates.” She kept my passport and waved goodbye to my little girl, trying to keep her occupied lol. 
 
I am SO excited to see my husband, make up for lost time with our little girl and just enjoy being a Mom for the first time in a long time. This experience has taken a lot away from us as first time parents but we have MADE IT and are so excited to see each other. ♥️
 
So happy to read that lots of you are getting appointments this week. That is amazing. 

Late to the party, but my husband DQ'ed Feb 16 and has an interview for August 9!! 🎉  That was such a hard 5 month wait. Thank you to the people that started this forum as it has been so helpful to us. Hoping timelines will improve for those still waiting! xx

Late to the party, but my husband DQ'ed Feb 16 and has an interview for August 9!! 🎉  That was such a hard 5 month wait. Thank you to the people that started this forum as it has been so helpful to us. Hoping timelines will improve for those still waiting! xx

It’s such amazing news to see everyone’s great news with getting appointment dates. Congratulations! The trip to the embassy was such an great day!!!