Possible to delay medical by months?

[A Lost Iguana 1]

It seems that fate has not been kind because expected timescales would imply that I would be unable to attend my younger brother's wedding as it would be too soon after mine in order to expect an AP back or the AOS filing. If I am correct, the time limit on the visa is set by the medical interview so this would be the crucial date to delay. However, the petition approval is only supposed to have a limited period for which it is valid.

My NOA2 was two weeks ago but I think I would need to push back my medical interview to May in order to be able to attend my brother's June wedding in London and also allow for my fiancee to have a wedding that is not in the middle of the Texan summer.

Do anyone have an insight about whether the embassy can keep a case open for this period of time?

[lost_at_sea 995]

That's okay. You can do that. Lots of people do. If you get to the point where you're interviewing after your petition has expired, you'll just need a fresh letter of intent to reaffirm the case. Have a search on the forums for similar folks - I know there were a couple of people recently delaying their progress for similar reasons, but I can't recall their user names (bet Nich-Nick will remember).

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

Delaying the medical 6-7 months? That is really pushing the limits. Sometime you have to make a hard choice and go for you own wedding and future or see your brother marry. Do you really want to put your life on hold that long?

Medical May, interview July, marry next October? It's still hot in Texas in Sept.

Also I wouldn't say lots of people push the medical out 7 months. I know zero who have.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Nich-Nick

[lost_at_sea 995]

Delaying the medical 6-7 months? That is really pushing the limits. Sometime you have to make a hard choice and go for you own wedding and future or see your brother marry. Do you really want to put your life on hold that long?

Medical May, interview July, marry next October? It's still hot in Texas in Sept.

Also I wouldn't say lots of people push the medical out 7 months. I know zero who have.

Sorry. That's 100% fair. I thought I recalled folks pushing out interviews, but I can't think of anyone who waited 7 months to do a medical.

[A Lost Iguana 1]

I thank the pair of you for the advice and warning.

I appreciate that hard decisions must sometimes be made but both my fiancee and I want to attend the wedding. A revised plan would be to try to schedule the medical for late January or early February (the I-129F is valid until 8th Feb so it will just need a new letter of intent from the US) and to leave the the UK for the US a few days after my sibling's wedding. At least I would be able to fly with my fiancee to the US.

I hope that there has not been trouble with entering the US having used up most of the time limit on the K-1. I read on some document that the chest X-ray from the medical is only valid for six months (the rest, a year) so I suspect that the time limit on entry arises from this. Would discussing the desire to delay entry to attend the wedding at the interview help?

Hopefully searching POE reviews/experiences will be illuminating.

Edited October 31, 2013 by A Lost Iguana

[Nich-Nick 3,354]

You can enter as long as the visa is valid. They don't evaluate how close you cut it.

Some people have gotten delayed in the visa part or put in additional processing after the interview for many months. Or they took a long time getting the forms and documents done. Anyway...the medical expired before their visa got issued. So they return to Knightsbridge and pay £160 to have the blood test and chest x-ray repeated, giving them a new 6 month period of validity.