Hi,
I am sorry to hear that your process has taken so long. I submitted an I-730 petition for my daughter in September 2004 and in June 2005 it was approved. The case was sent to the National Visa Center who forwarded it a to the Embassy a few weeks later. The embassy received the approval notice on July 11, 2005 and I received a letter from them requesting the pertinent documents on July 27, 2005. I had everything ready by then so all my daughter has to do now is her medical exam. Once she has that, everything will be sent to the Embassy. She has her doctor's appointment tomorrow and on Thursday the embassy will receive the documents.
Once they receive them, they review them and if everything is in order, they send the beneficiary a letter with the interview date. I am hoping that this will take about 3 weeks. The same day of the interview, she will get her I-94 and letter so I think she will be able to come here sometime in September.
We are both colombian citizen's but my daughter lives in Madrid, Spain with my mom, I think that's why it hasn't taken that long; they don't process a lot of immigrant visa petitions. I've heard that in Colombia it takes about 9 months after they receive the approval from the NVC before they can send the letter and schedule the interview. Since there are so many people waiting for an immigrant visa, the process is long.
I advise you to call the NVC as often as possible. I kept calling almost every day for two weeks and every time I called they told me to wait longer. First 2 weeks, then 30 days, then 90 days for the embassy to receive the approval but 14 days later, the embassy had the approval. What I did then was call the embassy to confirm that they received the case and I sent them a letter requesting expedited processing. I am not sure what helped but calling, insisting, having my congressman's office inquiry and sending letters everywhere has helped a lot!
I hope this information is helpful!
Good luck, I hope your wife and daughter get here soon!
