The big day!

On May 3rd, after a long year of waiting, we made the 40 minutes drive to our interview for my green card. Comfortingly enough we had visited the building the interviews were held in, a week before when we went for a meeting with an immigration officer to get some information on our case.

When we walked into the building and through the line to the security check where my purse was scanned and we had to walk through metal detectors; the security officers recognized us from the week before! We told them it was the big day and they wished us luck. I asked an officer where we needed to go for our interview and we were instructed to go upstairs and wait.

We made our way up the stairs to a large room filled with back to back chairs with people from every corner of the world sitting in them. Handing our interview notice to the lady at the desk we took a seat. By this point my heart was pounding. This was it, we were finally here! After a year of waiting we were here doing this for real! We sat for a long time before our interview time neared. As the clock hit 10 0’clock I turned off my phone and waited patiently. Our interview was scheduled for 10.15am and this time quickly came and went and we remained seated. This gave me time to watch how it all worked!

There were about four doors surrounding the seating area where the immigration officers would come out, go to the desk and call the person next in line. I watched intently, seeing how to officers interacted with people. I turned to Adam and said “She looks nice I hope we get her!” Many of the officers did not greet people as they took them through the doors, while others shook hands with a smile and chatted with the nervous people being interviewed.

There was a vast range of people in the USCIS building and looking around it made me wonder what they were all there for! Opposite us sat a couple going through photos while I assume the mans wife, was telling him where the picture was taken who was in it and when. Their names were later called by two separate officers and they went to two separate rooms so I can only assume that they were there that day for a stokes interview. (An immigration interview where spouses are separated due to suspicion of visa fraud) But who knows I could be totally wrong!

Around about 11 o’clock our names were called. Clutching my folder close to my chest, I stood and greeted a very smiley immigration officer who shook our hands and introduced himself very politely! We followed him to a door at the end of the room; everyone watching us, wondering what would await us behind those doors! Through the door we walked down a long hallway of glass window offices, able to see some people being interviewed. When we reached our assigned office, we sat and were asked to stand to take the oath. As we sat again, the immigration officer told us this wouldn’t take long and he would get out of our hair as soon as possible (I thought if anything we would be getting out of HIS hair!). He made a joke that this wasn’t an interrogation and he wasn’t going to shine a light in our faces and shut us in a dark room. This made me totally relax! I had read horror stories online that said do not under any circumstances joke with the immigration officer. So hearing him make jokes with us totally set me at ease!

He started by explaining that he would ask us both separately some questions. He started with Adam, asking his name, date of birth and address. Then came what he called the “Million dollar question”, What is your wedding anniversary. “March 23rd” Easy! I thought. He then asked what year, which to my surprise Adam responded after some hesitation…2013. I looked at him and said jokingly, “No! 2015! We met in 2013 so you’re half right” The immigration officer joked about how he was trying to whisper the year to Adam and he didn’t want to get him in trouble with me! How funny!

Moving on, it was my time for the questions. Again I was asked my name, date of birth and address. He also asked me what my status was when I entered the United States and what date I entered, along with at which airport I landed and was inspected by an immigration officer. Then came the part that nearly had me giggling! When you fill in the I-485 Adjustment of Status form, there is a section that asks a bunch of questions along the lines of; Do you plan to overthrow the government? Have you ever been a prostitute? Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever been a member of any terrorist group? Both the immigration officer and I clearly knew none of this was true. I am a 20 year old girl from the English Countryside, I have not lived a very exciting life! Obviously my answers to all of these were no; he just needed to clarify that my answers on my I-485 matched my answers on the interview day. He asked if we had any evidence that we wanted to submit, to which we handed over the lease to our apartment with both of our names on. He said “Oh this is good.” He took a photocopy and handed it back to us.

He explained that everything was good and there were no issues and that he would make a decision that day. Following that, I would receive an approval letter and my green card in the mail about 3 weeks after this. He never explicitly said that we were approved but given that he explained the approval process, we did not expect to be denied. He asked if we had any questions and we did not, so we shook his hand and he walked us back down the hallway and to the door where we shook hands again.

And that was it! We actually sat longer in the lobby waiting than we did getting interviewed! It was a super easy process and no way near as daunting as I had dreaded it would be.

Our interview was Tuesday May 3rd and I received my approval letter on Saturday May 7th! I danced around the kitchen in excitement! I was ecstatic! They say that the green card should arrive 3 weeks after the approval notice and so far we are at 2 weeks. One more week to go. If we do not receive my green card by next week then I will call and ask where it is! I am so excited for this process to be over! Next is applying for a social security and a drivers license! I am so excited to get a bank account! My UK debit card is not always accepted over here so I have trouble spending money unless it is in cash! It’s the little things right!

The home stretch!

Wow what a crazy week! I have been on the phone every day this week trying to get information from various people which ended with one very helpful call to an attorney (I wish I’d done this in the first place!).

Here’s the back story…

Obviously, it is time to file your taxes here in the US, something incredibly foreign to me as we do not do this in the UK! As I am not a permanent resident yet and I do not have a social security number, I had to apply for something called an ITIN. This is an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number which allows Adam to file his taxes with my name on the documents. After filing, we received a notice asking for my physical passport. I confirmed with someone at the IRS that they did in fact need this and I wasn’t going to be sending to a phony address! So I mailed in my passport along with our marriage license as the names on the tax form did not match the name on my passport. (I have not changed my name on my passport yet. We’re working up to it! $$$)

About two weeks passed, and one morning I received an email from USCIS saying I had been assigned an interview date! GREAT, FINALLY!! Oh how my bubble burst quicker than I could jump for joy. I did not have my passport or marriage license. So a call back to the IRS and I mailed a letter to them requesting their immediate return. Which as I have found out this week has not actually been delivered!!

After lots of stressing about not having my passport and whether we are going to have to reschedule the interview appointment which we have waited a whole year for, I booked my medical which I go in for tomorrow (eek) and we ARE going to the interview. After lots of useless calls to USCIS customer service, I decided to call an attorney and get some legal advice over the phone. I was a little dubious about how much help I would actually receive before I was given a hefty legal bill. But a quick 15 minute conversation and my mind was at ease!

I will attend my medical exam tomorrow, April 25th, for my very first blood test which I am incredibly nervous about! Following this, April 26th we made what is called an InfoPass appointment in which we will meet with an immigration officer to discuss our situation and get clarification that we will in fact go to our interview. I am hoping that this will put my nervous mind to rest because I am still stressing about everything! After returning to the doctor April 27th to get the test results, we will attend our interview May 3rd!

Things are in no way how I imagined they would be when we would receive our interview date one whole year down the line. However, we are going to go to our interview and explain our very complex situation in the hope that they will understand that “life happens” and people have to file their taxes!

To say this has been a stressful time would be the understatement of the year. There have been lots of phone calls, a few tears and lots of hugs to get through all of this. I commend my husband for putting up with my stress and helping me to deal with all of this craziness. I have a tendency to over complicate things sometimes and worry when I do not need to. Slowly but surely we are getting there! This time next week we will be preparing for our interview and I am sure I will be a bundle of nerves but I am looking forward to this all coming to an end! Well, for two years at least!

82 long days

After our last snippet of information was received from USCIS on June 25th, we have heard nothing positive. We received a letter to say we didn’t file the medical records so we must take that to the interview when we receive a date…well that would be all good and well if we would be receiving our interview date any time soon! It’s been 82 days exactly since USCIS received our latest request for evidence. Yes, I counted. After 60 days of hearing nothing you are allowed to call and ask questions. After 82 days I am growing increasingly frustrated. I have called two or three times in the last couple of weeks and after calling today, I was told “You are still within the normal processing times for this type of case so you must wait now to receive an interview date” Oh how nice it must be to spew out this information to frustrated petitioners at home while you have a job and an income!

It’s becoming incredibly boring checking the mail everyday and staring into an empty box. I feel like I cannot look forward to anything anymore. Family members birthdays, Christmas. I have no money to contribute to anything. Yes of course Adam provides for our family but I want to contribute too! I want to be able to go out and see something desirable for our home and buy it there on the spot because I am working and I have the money to do so! Instead I am just able to dream about the day that I can do that and leave the item on the shelf.

Adam frequently reminds me that this is a journey we embarked on together and one we will face together. As frustrating as it is to sit at home with no money and no car, it warms my heart when he says that because I know he will truly always be by my side. And he is right, this is a journey we decided to start together and we knew what we were getting ourselves into when we filed that paperwork a long five months ago.

My frustrations come from the waiting; the unknown. Will I be able to work by Christmas or will I be waiting until next March? Another one of my unanswered questions that I must wait a possible further 82 days to find a resolution to.

What they don’t tell you

When the prospect of moving to the United States comes about, it seems like such an exciting venture. A lifetime with the person that you’re so crazily in love with; a new life together. You hear all the stories about how people went through the immigration process and it was such an exciting time for them. Well here’s what the love stories don’t tell you.

Immigration proceedings are no fun. They are a lot of money, a lot of time and a hell of a lot of waiting. It’s going through weeks of stress to get together all the relevant paperwork only to send it in and be told that you’re missing documents. It’s checking the mail every day waiting for a letter only to be disappointed once again when it’s empty. Staring into an empty mail box is like staring into the emptiness of your future.

The excitement of getting to be with your husband or wife is such a magical feeling; yet that’s all you seem to hear. You don’t hear the struggles of the spouse that sits at home all day and has to rely on people because their paperwork hasn’t been completed yet. Months of waiting means a crumbling of independence. For those that don’t have a drivers license, it means relying solely on your spouse to drive you around. Or if you’re lucky enough to have family members here too, it’s them having to drive you around as well. There’s the stress of not knowing anyone outside of your family and your spouses friends; the longing for the friendships you had in your home country and the heartbreak that you can’t just pop round for a cup of tea with your best friends back home.

I’m at the point as you may be able to tell, of frustration. I feel like a burden to those around me. I have had to latch on to family to do things for me that I can’t; driving, paying for things. My independence is gone. Yes I’m living with my husband in a new country and it’s oh so exciting. But am I able to contribute and do things without having to ask anyone to help me? No. And God damn I hate it. I want so badly just to drive to Walmart and pick up groceries with my OWN money that I went out and earned for myself. I want a proper life.

I knew this journey would be tough and it would entail a lot of sitting at home and relying on my husband. He does a bloody good job of supporting our little family all my himself, I just long to take that pressure off of him. I’ve been here for six months now and we are four or so months into our immigration proceedings, which seem to be at a standstill. I think that’s where my frustration is coming from at this moment. The last letter that we received was to tell us that I would need to take my medical papers to my interview, which I would receive the date for soon. And that was about a month ago. Since we sent in our very first set of paperwork, everything moved pretty fast and we heard something new every couple of weeks; however now we are left in the dark waiting for an interview date. I feel hopeless and just like a burden because I am unable to do anything other than sit at home and have people run around like blue arsed flies for me when I have things I need to do.

I am grateful for our journey and I try every day to find patience in it; some days I do this better than others. But for right now, I have hit a mental wall. This is not a post to scare anyone. When I started my blog, I decided to be honest with what was happening along our journey so that I could help others also walking the same path. It will be a rewarding experience for sure, but for now it is a very tough one. However, it is not a journey that I am willing to struggle through. We will all have our tough days, but it is waking up the next day and deciding to change our mind set and have a better day.

For better, for worse

The first thing people say to me when they find out that I am in a long distance relationship is “wow that must be hard” or “I don’t know how you do it.” I have a very simple response when this is said to me; yes, it is incredibly hard but we do it because we have to. Another thing that I am asked about is how I am able to trust Adam when he is so far away and I don’t know what he’s getting up to. In everyone else’s minds, it is easy to imagine that he is off gallivanting with every Tom, Dick and Harry getting up to God knows what. But the difference here is that they don’t know Adam like I do.

From day one, I have trusted him and this is something that initially scared the living daylights out of me. How could I put so much faith in someone that I had only just met and barely knew? As I grew to know and understand the man that stood before me, I could see how beautiful he was, inside and out. He was a true gentleman, opening and closing the car door for me (which to this day he still does when we get in the car together) and paying for things whenever we went out. It was the small gestures that made me realise the kind soul that he was hiding.

I could never have imagined that in 2013 I would fall so madly in love. This was also something that scared me so intensely; you can even ask Adam. I told him one day that being in love with him scared the life out of me. But I knew that it was a fear that would soon subside; which it absolutely did. As Christmas rolled around, we exchanged “I love you’s” for the first time and it was then that I knew I could trust him completely with my life but more importantly, my heart. The day before Christmas Eve, Adam gave me the gift of a promise ring. This was not only a promise from him to me, but a promise from me to him, to be faithful and to promise to love one another. People seem to think that a promise ring, or an engagement ring is just for show, when in reality it is so much more than that. It is a symbol of a promise to one another.

So when you hear that I am in a long distance relationship, please don’t assume that there are lies and deceit within our relationship. We have made promises to each other that will last a life time. We may be in a long distance relationship at the moment, but the long distance part will not be forever.

Reflection

Two weeks ago, on a sunny summers day, Adam and I had our engagement pictures taken by the most wonderful photographer. Initially I was a little self conscious about having my picture taken for an hour solid but not only did our photographer make me feel incredibly comfortable, Adam did too.

As we ventured through having our pictures taken, my fabulous fiance continued to make me laugh and smile just with a simple glance. Looking right into his eyes as he held me for the pictures was an incredibly innocent and tender moment that made me remember why I fell in love with him in the beginning. It’s funny how not even saying a single word can make you feel so much. In my head I reminisced about his proposal a month before and all the way back to the time that we first said “I love you”. Later that evening we headed to dinner and Adam proceeded to stare at me from across the table and tell me how beautiful I was, even while I scoffed down a plate of calamari that we were meant to share. It is looking back at a simple moment like this that I realize how much Adam loves me and how much I love him.

Now that we have received our engagement photos, I am able to look back at the moment that truly means so much to me; the moment that I fell in love with him all over again. It really is something that I cannot describe; but one thing I know is that I am astonishingly in love with this man and I don’t think I will ever stop falling in love with him.

Moments like this should be cherished and I feel so incredibly lucky to have such a poignant moment in our lives documented in the most beautiful way.

It’s a date!

Adam and I have set a date for our wedding!

December 29th 2014 we will be tying the knot in my home country! Originally, we planned to marry in Texas in 2015 but things changed when my family booked their tickets to come home from Texas for Christmas. I couldn’t miss an opportunity to have my whole family together (which hasn’t happened for the longest time – I don’t even remember the last time we were all together!) to witness Adam and I saying “I do!”. 

So as of now, we are in wedding planning mode! Well, I say “we”…my incredible mother and sister are pulling everything together back in England right now. When I get home, I will be able to have a more hands on approach and be able to meet with the appropriate people to discuss things. It’s all incredibly exciting!

Many people both inside and outside of my family may think that this is rushed; which it absolutely is! But only in terms of time scale. Having only gotten engaged in July, planning a wedding for December the same year is going to be stressful. But being in a long distance relationship is stressful, so it’s nothing that Adam and I can’t handle together; which we are pro’s at now! Adam and I certainly do not feel rushed in getting married in December. I know for sure that he is the man that I want to spend my life with and I am SO ready to marry him!

I’m excited to plan our big day and to pull everything together in the short space of time that we have! I’ll be so glad when we can look back and say “we did it” and to finally be able to call myself Adam’s wife!