Passed Interview in Minsk

[Zee Bee 61]

Congratulations

[cjgator 2]

We still have to work that out, hon. She wants to have a few days to say goodbye to family and several of friends, which I want her to do also. My thoughts right now are to get her over here somewhere between the 16th and the 19th. We agreed to talk about it once she got back to her parents' home, which is on the Belarus/Poland border, about 4 hours away from Minsk. She has to hang out in Minsk until tomorrow afternoon, her visa won't be ready until 3. So, we'll probably discuss a specific travel itinerary either tomorrow night or Friday.

I definitely want a family reunion with you all as soon as you get your sweethearts here.

And, of course, I'll continue to keep you in the loop about the next stage - how she adjusts, the AOS & employment phase, and all of that other good stuff. I'm also going to regularly pop in and see how you all are doing. I really hope NVC and the embassy goes smooth for you.

It's been hard to work today. I'm in this really weird state of over-the-top relief, disbelief, and quiet excitement. I think the school-kid enthusiasm will hit me on the day of her flight to the States.

Take care, dear..

C

So when will she fly out? Hopefully soon!!!

Definitely dinner and drinks for you all! My treat! But don't forget...still having the big bash K3 party/reunion once our spouses are here.

Thanks Zee Bee!!

C

Congratulations

[queuedup 1]

Congratulations!!!

[Jasman0717 9]

Congratulations

[cjgator 2]

Thanks jasman!!

C

Congratulations

thanks queuedup!!

C

Congratulations!!!

[amberdima 6]

wonderful news!!!

[GS4EVER 0]

Lisa thanks to you, and thanks to you Narnia, and waithatter, and all of you cool people.

Definitely big dinner and drinks at the table, Narnia.

Crazy thing - I woke up out of a dead sleep at 3:25 am. That was about 5 minutes after she finished her interview. She waited until 6:30 my time to call - she said she didn't want to wake me up.

I told her, "I think it would have been OK to wake me up for this one."

Big hugs & kisses.

CJ

Chris, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was thinking about you guys last night..I wasnt sure what time her interview was but I figured it woudl be sometime in the middle of last night our time.

Im SO happy that she will be coming home soon.

And you ,my brother held us together too

Lisa

and yes...dinner for six

YEP it definitely warrants a waking up! I don't believe I will sleep at all the night of the interview. Will definitely pull an all nighter and then crash afterwards, and I bet if the news is good, I would keep going like the energizer bunny

BIG CONGRATULATIONS! TRULY EXCITING!

So this was a visa for K3 and you guys followed the I 129F route not I 130 correct?

[mkg265 2]

Congrats!!!!!!!

[cjgator 2]

Hey GS, thank you very much! To answer your question, yes, we focused on the K-3 from the beginning, mainly because of logistics. She could interview for the K-3 in her home country (Minsk, Belarus), while a CR-1 interview would have required her going to Warsaw, Poland. While Warsaw is actually a little closer to her home than Minsk, she would have needed an additional travel visa to go to Poland. Residents of Russia and Belarus cannot travel to Poland anymore without travel visas.

We did start considering the CR-1 route when NVC mis-routed her packet to the wrong embassy, because it took so long to A} get NVC to admit they had made a mistake, B} follow up on the problem, and C} wait for the packet to get re-routed to Minsk. Like I mentioned before, that last "circus" basically cost us an additional six weeks of waiting.

Again, I really appreciate the thanks and support. I wish you all the best of luck in your journey as well.

CJ

Edited March 4, 2009 by cjgator

[cjgator 2]

Thanks mk!

Congrats!!!!!!!

[GS4EVER 0]

Hey GS, thank you very much! To answer your question, yes, we focused on the K-3 from the beginning, mainly because of logistics. She could interview for the K-3 in her home country (Minsk, Belarus), while a CR-1 interview would have required her going to Warsaw, Poland. While Warsaw is actually a little closer to her home than Minsk, she would have needed an additional travel visa to go to Poland. Residents of Russia and Belarus cannot travel to Poland anymore without travel visas.

We did start considering the CR-1 route when NVC mis-routed her packet to the wrong embassy, because it took so long to A} get NVC to admit they had made a mistake, B} follow up on the problem, and C} wait for the packet to get re-routed to Minsk. Like I mentioned before, that last "circus" basically cost us an additional six weeks of waiting.

Again, I really appreciate the thanks and support. I wish you all the best of luck in your journey as well.

CJ

Thanks for your response C. Always nice to see a VSC member getting to that point in time with visa in hand. 300+ days!! You two deserve all the happiness coming ur way! What a wait! Enjoy the rewards as I am sure u will

[belovedbyme 0]

COngratuations!

Hey Sonia, thanks for the congrats.

Well, she said the first thing the consular officer did is apologize to her for the process having taken so long. I thought that was very classy on CO's part. She then said that the CO quickly looked over her paperwork (DS 156, I-134, Police Birth Marriage Certificates), and asked her three questions: When did you meet your husband, where did you meet him, and how did you come to know him? After she answered those three questions, the CO told her everything was fine, and she could pick up her passport with visa after 3 pm local time on Thursday. She said the whole process took about 15 minutes once she got into the CO's office.

good luck.

BTW - thank you also espos and seren..you all are part of this great K3 group. All my best..

Natasha passed her interview 4 hours ago. She said it was very brief, officer was very nice. She'll get the visa tomorrow after 3 pm Minsk time.

I'll update the VJ timeline later, but for those of you keeping score:

Time from Marriage to Visa: 1 year, 4 days.

Time from I-130 NOA 1 to Visa: 341 days

Time from I-129F NOA 1 to Visa: 334 days

Time from I-130 NOA 2 to Visa: 72 days

Time from I-129F NOA 2 to Visa: 71 days

I'm very happy, but I offer NO thanks to the USCIS system that made this wait so long and the NVC staff who screwed up our package transfer to the embassy, adding an extra six weeks to the wait. YOUR SYSTEM IS BROKEN - HORRIBLY.

Kudos to the Consular staff at American Embassy Minsk. They were awesome, and they did their best to re-assure us and make up for NVC's f-ups.

God knows I hope the Obama administration does something to make this process work better.

And, for any of you who want to defend USCIS and leave a smarmy response about my hammering them (there are a few ususal suspects on here who typically do), I have a message: GO POUND SAND. I don't care what you think.

Finally: Lisa, Narnia, and all of my K3 friends who gave great advice and kept me quasi-sane through this completely insane process, you all deserve the majority of the credit for getting us to this point. For those of you who are finally with your spouses, I'm very happy for you, and for those who are still waiting, I hope it ends soon for you. You deserve it.

-CJ

Congrats CJ...Well, what was ur wife asked in the interview? Please post these things, so that we can prepare ourselves...

Again...Wish a very happy married life in US...

Sonia

[Mina76 0]

That's great, Congratulations on your visa approval!!!

[o0pink0o 3]

Congratulations!!

[cjgator 2]

mina, pink, beloved, thanks for the great words, and best of luck to you!!

-CJ

Congratulations!!