overwhelmed yet hopeful

Things seem to be coming together for the green card application and process.  Forms are (mostly) filled out, documents gathered, copies made, etc.  I'm trying to go over board with what we provide them, figuring we can't have too much information to prove our relationship and its history.  We have an appointment scheduled for the visa for October 31st.  This is a start, but obviously it means we would miss the interviews for UMDNJ on the 17th & 18th.  And, Buffalo needs to know by the 31st if he'll be coming for the interview and clinical exam, and an exam fee needs to be paid by the 31st, so...that'd be cutting it very very close.

We're going to try to get an expedited visa appointment.  Ideally, this would be for sometime next week.  Before we can do that, though, they need to fix the error in our surname.  The woman who scheduled the appointment yesterday wrote his name as MulanBi.  Small detail.  Nothing is ever easy, is it?

Even though we're still wading through this, after several conversations with friends and family who've gone through this process as well as talking to someone in the Embassy, I feel much better.  Filling out all this paperwork makes me feel...dumb.  I mean seriously, the forms are so complicated and confusing. English is my first language, and the forms and their directions still lose me!  I can't imagine what it must be like to do this if English is your third or fourth language!

I will be glad when this whole process is over, and I can file away all this paperwork, and take a break...before moving on to things like finding scholarships and financial aid for school. Whew.

Thank you for your prayers!  They are working!  And pray with us now that we can get the appointment earlier, and that all the documents are in good order. 

We'll keep you posted.