A little nervous but ready to do this...

[valeriemedina 1]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking around on this site for about a month reading about all of your experiences and advice. I finally decided to create a profile and get started. I have almost completed my package for submission of the I-130 petition. I hope to have everything ready to go by this weekend. It's exciting and it makes me a little nervous too, but I want this for my husband, so it's time to get to it.

A little about us...

We met October 21, 2013 - we were neighbors - there was an instant connection and we began to spend as much time together as possible. We enjoyed each other's company and the new found companionship was a breath of fresh air. At first, his English was not good at all, and my Spanish was rusty at best. But, we learned to communicate switching back and forth between the two languages. This has probably been the case for many other couples, but with love and patience, we all find a way to make it. We began living together in July 2014, got engaged in Sept 2014, and tied the knot in an intimate outdoor ceremony with 30 of our friends and family on a chilly January morning (Jan 10th). It was a very special day for both of us since his birthday was the 11th and mine was the 12th. A complete weekend of celebrations for us. Although he had no family from Honduras present at our wedding, he did have a host of close family friends from Honduras (also immigrants), other coworkers, and of course his new family (my family). It was a very emotional ceremony - we both cried the entire time.

He is an amazing person with such a wonderful heart and I could not ask for a better soulmate. I'm looking forward to meeting his family someday in Honduras.

Here's what we are up against...

I'm not afraid of the I-130 process - that is pretty much, in my opinion, the easy part - at least for our situation. The difficult part will be when I get to the I-601A Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver. The whole "proving extreme hardship" part scares me to death. How can I possibly prove or convince the authorities that I would be put in an extreme hardship if he were deported or refused the visa? You see, I am relatively healthy (although I do have some minor issues we could play up); I am college educated in a career field with a very nice salary (paralegal); I / we do not have any children (I would like children but we'd have to do IVF and that costs a lot of $$); a 17 year age gap between us, and I can support myself without his income (currently in an apartment but looking to buy a house - maybe that will bolster my case). So, those are my worries and the basics of my waiver situation. I feel that this will be the part that I will have to get very creative with. I will most likely be consulting with an attorney or two within my firm to see what they think I could do. So, we'll see. But I'm ready for this journey.

I hope to get to know some of you on here and learn from your experiences and advice. Thanks for reading my post!

Regards,

Valerie

[Pitaya 2,577]

Welcome to the forum.

[TBoneTX 45,284]

Welcome to the forum.

[samanthayanes 0]

Good luck! Reading your story reminded me of my husband and I.... Sweetest man in the world. He is also from Honduras... we have been working for the process for almost 2 years now and just now got to the NVC process. We have had a few hick ups. You will definitely need an attorney when you get to the Waiver process...it's a one shot deal and it needs to be strong and sharp...

We have had am attorney the whole time, but looking back... I could have saved about $3000, doing the first 2 parts myself.

[Lenny&Sanna 114]

Good luck with your journey!!!!!!