Nywoek

One week after our interview, I got the card in hand! This feels very surreal, but I am happy to get an immigration paperwork break for a year and some. XD Although still gotta keep keeping up with the evidence of bonafide marriage, which is nice because I like to scrapbook, lol. Thanks everyone, for all your guidance and well wishes. ^___^

I kept checking my email yesterday and this morning I logged in, nothing yet, but what you are saying makes sense.. those systems are kind of slow! XD

So we finally got to have our interview yesterday! This weekend was super busy with a birthday party, my oldest and husband going to Anime Boston and easter shenanigans, so we didn't really have any time to prepare, other than add another page of photos from the past month and our joint taxes to the portal. We also printed it. I did not get the best sleep, but the only time we were really nervous was on the drive there.. lol. We went into the building 30 minutes before our appointment, and the first thing that happened was that the officers at the door asked to see the interview notice because apparently our appointment had been moved around before we even got the date and time. So that was a little confusing, but more for him than us I suppose. Then we went and put our notice in a little bin and waited for a bit before a lady came and called us in. She was friendly, a little on the older side, and at one point she said "oh wow! you are so young looking yourself and have a child in highschool!" while I was talking about my kids, lol. XD The only thing that was a little stressful was that she wanted me to "explain" the different spellings of my name. I use an Å in my last name (and did not change it after getting married) and on my norwegian passport they spell it both with that and with AA because that is the international standard. I tried to explain that and she was asking for translated documents (my birth certificate is in english, because you can order it like that) and so it was a little jarring trying to explain that without feeling like I had done something wrong, but I think she was just trying to make sure that my name would be correct for my greencard, and making sure it was all in order. I have used AA pretty consistently, and I think the only record of someone just spelling it with a single A is from early on K1 days where my husband spelled it differently on one form, but all that was taken care of by the time I got my visa in Stockholm. After that it was just her asking us questions. I thought it was kind of interesting because she would ask my husband questions about his siblings, and did not ask me if I knew them or had met them. She did ask me what my mom thought of me marrying an american, lol, and I had a story about the first time we met and how my parents were out of town that week (such a coincidence! XD). She also asked me what our plans were and I was a bit like.. I mean, live our lives? But then she asked well do you want more children, are you traveling somewhere, etc, and I answered that no we are happy with our family of four and our cat and that we will be going to Norway this summer to spend time with family and friends. My husband is an anxious person so he got a bit lost in some of his stories, but it was all ok. Then she asked me all the questions from the form, and it was a bit confusing because she would not end all her questions in a question tone, and some of those sentences run on and on and on, so I would listen to it and then she would just stop but since it did not sound like a question I probably waited a second or two too long to answer no! She must be so tired of reading all of those out loud... haha. At the end she said that after we left she would approve our case, and that I would get a letter in the mail and then they will produce my greencard. Yay! She also said that it is conditional and we can apply again before the 2 years is up, and mentioned the naturalization process where the 10 year card probably wont arrive before I have had my greencard for 3 years so we can probably get an interview for both of them at the same time if we apply for that. I already knew that, but I thought it was nice she mentioned that. Then we went out to lunch and went by World Market and bought some scandinavian and british treats since we dont have that store nearby. I feel good! My case has not changed online, but I will be patient. My mom got a bit stressed out so we already ordered tickets for everyone this summer (mine are refundable..) but now I know I get to visit home for a few weeks. Exciting times ahead!

I have read that one, it’s so funny. 🙈🙈😂 Got an email this morning. They scheduled a new appointment for april 6th. Almost a month and a half later. Damn blizzard. 😕 I was really hoping to sort out summer tickets soon.

I didn't check my email earlier, but they sent a notice at 3.30 that they were closing the offices that day, and then half an hour later that they cancelled the interview. Oh. Well. I mean... this is much better than getting in a car crash due to a blizzard. Lol. Because while I am no stranger to driving (or riding a car.. I do not drive lol) in snow, I am from so far up north that after october you get a ticket if you do not have winter tires on your car and that is definitely not the same here. XD No one has that, they just stay home until the roads are clear. XD

Judging by the amount of snow days my kids have had, they like to close things. 🙈 And I am not the problem, I have never had a snow day in my life, and the one I remember for my kids was because of hurricane winds + snow (they walked to school, lol). But we’ll see. We’ll just get ready tomorrow and hope for the best.

Thanks guys! Now I’m worried about the weather; there seems to be snow coming down all day monday and I have no idea if they will cancel or what happens if they do (do they call you?), and how long we have to wait before they reschedule. >_<

We have our AOS interview scheduled on monday. We printed all the papers, made copies of every important (and not-so important) document and organized them into folders so that we can pull whatever we are asked for. 3 more nights though, how should we prepare, what sort of questions should we ask each other, and does anyone have any advice for us? 😃

Hi! We ended up filling in the financial documents and resending everything, including every page from the tax documents. It seemed to have done the trick, because we now have an interview scheduled later this month. We used the online portal. Scanned the things we had to sign and put it all together again as a pdf. Best of luck to you, I am sure it will all be fine!

We spent 150 dollars with UPS to make sure our AOS application got registered in time before my i94 expired, so personally I would do whatever I needed to get it in on time. We sent it on the 19th or 18th but it was the weekend so they sent it off on the 20th and our uscis records states the 22nd. My i94 expired on the 26th. Considering how things are right now, just get it sent in. There are people going to their greencard interview and being taken by ICE because they were out of status for a month. The specific case I am talking about was a Norwegian lady and on a student visa, overstayed for not a very long time and then married a citizen and went on to do AOS. She was at a routine interview when ICE picked her up. The biggest take from all this is that a lot of people used to do this and they were just fine, some people still do this and are just fine, but if you happen to be one of those people it does not work out for you can ask yourself why it was worth waiting and it will not be a very pleasant experience and potentially ruin your plans to live here.

We got our NOA1 within a week I think. Submitted on the 20th (or well reached them on that date) and the NOA1 is dated the 24th. 😃

I also took my 2 kids with me to the states on a K1. They are american citizens so we did not have any kind of wait, but I would not have left them home for months to a year before moving. However, try to time their move to summer break, we got here a month before school started. Also, depending on the childs age, you can homeschool for a while. That is what I am doing with my youngest. Your fiance wont be able to work at first anyway, and you can sign up for public school later.

We looked into it and we are a little stumped. Obviously there could have been a little mistake in the form somewhere, but I went through and filled in N/A everywhere empty (the form on the computer is notorious for not letting you fill everything out so you gotta do it later). I think I checked the signatures, and that form was only 12 pages so we both made sure no pages were missing. Still, we could have made a mistake somewhere. My husband is pretty meticulous but mistakes happen. He mentioned that maybe we overdid it with the financial evidence? Like I mentioned before we submitted tax transcrips (22-24), W2s (22-24), and 1040s (22-24) in addition to pay stubs for the past six months and a letter from his company mentioning that he works there and how much he makes. We followed a YT video that recommended all that. His theory is either that this was overkill, and that he should have just submitted his latest tax transcript, or that the letter from his employer was too old. We got it written back in May because we filled in the support documents before my interview. They never took a look at them, but we figured that it is still from this year and the pay stubs shows a stream of income since. Any advice or idea what happened here? We will just resubmit asap, but we want to do it right. The other day I got my biometrics appointment set up for the 14th this month, will the RFE interfere with that? X_X We plan to submit soon, and I can do it online but still..

Got an actual spooky letter from USCIS the day after Halloween! 🙈 Kid came running down with an envelope with a yellow paper inside. She went "Maybe it is good news about your greencard!" and I was like.. yeeeeah, probably not, go back outside to play please. XD I am scanning the pages because they said to add them when we respond. It says this: I do not understand what happened. My husband makes several times the required amount, so we must have messed up somewhere. I am grateful and happy that they sent an RFE and not just a denial though. My husband took care of this part of the application while I filed the other one, and he did not make a copy apart from the part he could complete online. Is he missing tax documents or something? He submitted pay stubs for the past 6 months, tax transcripts, W2s and 1040s. All for the past 3 years. The other two pages go on about some additional tax documents, but reading it that looks like requirements of a co-sponsor, and we do not need that. Would they have told us that we were missing a specific section if he just forgot to fill it out? It also mentioned that he needs proof of citizenship at the end of the letter, but we added all that, we had a copy of his birth certificate and a scan of his passport. But that was added to the general application, maybe we needed it again for the support documents? Either way we will add it to the packet we submit now. I am wondering if there is anyone I can call to ask these things, and we did get a specific person but no phone number, so probably not. I would just resubmit all these papers but I do not want to make the same mistake again. AOS must work very differently than the i129-f because this happened QUICKLY. X_X Should I make another thread to get advice about this?

I got two letters in the mail from USCIS today and it was kinda spooky. 🙈 But it was just my biometrics appointment (November 14th, SO SOON!) and info to create an account online. I know this part is usually very quick and the next part can be very slow, but I am optimistic.

What I meant by that was that you have to wait between 5 months to a year, and it just recently became possible for me to take it, but I haven’t yet. Will have to get that done soon, but will I have to go to a civil surgeon to add it to my vaccine document, or will documentation from whatever doctor/clinic be enough? Hm.

Got the noa1 in the mail today, our application came in on the 20th and the noa1 is dated the 22nd so both happened before my i94 expired. I am happy to have documentation to bring to show my legal status if necessary. The only thing I am unsure of right now, that I had not thought of.. I got my hep b vaccine back in april, and did the second shot a month later. You have to wait at least 5 more months after that one for the last booster, so that was missing on my vaccine sheet. Can this get me a denial or they want me to redo the medical? I mean we just passed the date to be able to get the last booster.. >_<

We decided to just apply for the i-485 since I am homeschooling and can’t drive so I won’t be working, at least not for a while. And my husband is the american citizen.

It is finally in, and we have a receipt number! On October 20, 2025, we received your Form I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status, Receipt Number (REDACTED), and sent you a receipt notice or acceptance notice. Which is a big weight off my shoulders, because my i94 expires on the 26th of October. It took me a full month to get a ssn appointment after I moved, then we dragged our feet a bit trying to pick a wedding date (ended up using our anniversary 😍) and then we had trouble getting the papers for it due to some annoying circumstances. Plus THOSE FORMS ARE INSANE. Lol. As for proof of relationship we submitted the following: Photos from my husbands trip to celebrate christmas with us. Photos from my trip to see him in april. Photos from his trip to help me move. Photos from after we moved, several pages, with some friends or family. Emergency contact form from my oldest daughter's school, with the both of us, plus a family friend (showing address). Homeschool confirmation from DoE with our address since that is where I homeschool our youngest. Facebook announcement for our marriage (since we did not have a party) Scans of different mail addressed to me, and one addressed to my daughter's guardian or parent. Insurance papers for me and my kids through my husband's work insurance, giving us health insurance and putting me as the benefactor for his work life insurance. Declaration for free entry of unaccompanied articles that I had to submit to my moving company (has our address on it) Screen prints from two credit cards that I am an authorized user on. Considering we have only been married for about a month this felt pretty decent. We still have to order our wedding bands, and we plan to send that documentation as well, plus if we do more official stuff like put me on the mortgage or more bills. But I am not working so I do not have income, and I do not drive, so I will not be on the insurance. I will also collect more mail to bring to an interview, since that will most likely happen. I guess we are waiting for further instructions in the mail from USCIS, eventually biometrics and then just a lot more waiting. I only filed for the AOS, not the parole or work authorization, since I have my hands full with homeschooling and we are doing just fine financially with one income for now.

Finally got ours submitted. Overnighted it to Chicago on saturday, it got there tuesday and today my husband got a text with a tracking number saying they got our application on the 20th. My i94 expires on the 26th so that was close, but it thankfully worked out. We ended up getting delayed because of paperwork.

I brought it with documentation to the interview. They did not look at it.

I just brought a copy of his stuff. For my own I brought an original. Norwegian birth certificates are not hard to get free of charge. I also brought a regular photocopy, but they wanted my original. I replaced it right after to bring with me to the USA.

I went through Sweden earlier this year. I think the website to schedule just requires you to have the number from the DS-160 so technically you can just submit it and then schedule your interview, but they are sort of notorious for not having any spots open. You have to book the time slot yourself, they will not contact you about it. They only did interviews for K1 on Mondays when I did this, and I am assuming it is the same now. I also think they just do a few every day. I couldn't tell you when they release the appointments, it seemed random to me. I just kept checking twice a day until I found one. I was able to book one for June during April, and only the Mondays in June were open for me. Nothing earlier or later. I do know someone logged in april 1st and got an appointment in May though, so who knows how it works. I know it is discouraging and a bit scary, but there will eventually be an opening, just keep checking. Good luck!

Thank you guys! Lots of good advice! We got married on our 3 year anniversary yesterday.. or I mean we did get married but it was us driving 45 minutes to meet some lady who was waiting for her kids to get off the bus (friend of a friend, registered minister, she recently married some friends of ours 😅), it took about 5 minutes for her to sign our papers and ask if we knew what she was doing («i do» «i do») and then we drove 45 minutes back to the house, got some forever d&d themed stamps and took the paperwork to the post office. So now we are officially married! Not a lot of photos, but i we got one with the kids taken by the server at the restaurant we went to. Very good idea about the kids’ paperwork, my oldest is in highschool and her new stepdad is listed as one of her emergency contacts. I also have a letter from the DOE confirming that they know my youngest is being homeschooled. That has my name and address. Now it’s just to make sure we have dotted all our i’s and signed everything we need on the applications. We still have to wait for the papers to come in the mail, so then we can add us to the insurance and more bank accounts (for now I just have a credit card with my name on it). Might also be useful to add papers from the movers with the address here. All this paperwork is scary, but I will get it done like was mentioned earlier; with the strongest possible case within the 90 days. And while we wait for the NOA1 I guess I will carry our marriage certificate just in case.

Had my ssn appointment on the 25th and got it in the mail early this week. We went and got a marriage license on thursday, so now we are good to go once we find an officiant! Not really doing a proper wedding or anything, will save that for later so our friends and families have time to attend. I suppose this will be my last update, since I should be moving on to the AOS part of the forum, but to whoever is reading this, thank you for following our journey and if anyone reads this in the future feel free to message me and ask if there might be something you think I might know based on this thread and my embassy/country! I have my email notifications turned on and will keep it that way.