Thanks for the replies, everyone. So it sounds like things can go pretty quickly after NOA2.
Sj33: Nice to meet you and good luck with the rest of your journey. How long have you been waiting for an interview so far? Which documents took a couple months?
I don’t see this documented anywhere, but I’m curious how far in advance we can get the police records and medical exam. I have my tax transcripts ready for I-864. Have to wait for I-130 approval before DS-260/1. Between the two of us we seem to have the other documents already. Just don’t know what else can be done at this stage to prepare for NVC.
And from the state dept website, it seems that the CR or IR determination is based on the date of US entry. That was another of my questions - at what point is the visa issuance date determined, (interview date, approval date, entry date). So it seems like if we wanted to get the IR green card we could just delay her US entry instead of delaying the NVC process or interview date.