Hi-
Thanks for the response. Thanks for the comments and questions.
1. My wife's name is "Ta" (Legal name is "Jitra"). Ta and I have my son (Freddy) 50% of the time. Every week, Freddy is in my custody from Wednesday 6pm-Friday 6pm. Every other week we have Freddy Wednesday 6pm-Monday morning ~9am. So it is 48 hours one week and 4 1/2 days the next with us. Ta is taking care of him a great majority of the time (my parents usually watch him on Thursdays during the day because my wife works). She feeds him, gives him baths, reads to him, plays with him, has him take naps, teaches him life skills. As a good mother does, but she lacks the biological relationship.
2. Ta and I have went to her doctor on at least a few occasions about pregnancy. We have inter-hospital emails where we are talking about what to do concerning having a baby. The doctor prescribed Clomid to try to help stimulate ovulation to increase the chances (and Prenatal vitamins). She gave her an exam to see if there was anything the matter. She had her do blood work, SOME that is related to her ability to have a child List: (Progesterone, FSH, DHEA-Sufate, LH, Pregnancy-Urine, Pap smear). The "after visit summaries" and/or "Visit Diagnoses" are: One says "Procreative Counseling and advice using natural family planning", one says "Infertility Female", one says "Procreative Management". She had my primary order a Semen Analysis, which I took, and have the results (normal), and we talk about this in one of the emails through the hospital email system. I cannot think of anything else besides the ovulation tests (probably hundreds) and many pregnancy tests-most of this we discarded the evidence as far as receipts, etc. But I would hope that this is ample evidence that we have been trying.
3. Pictures. We have probably several hundreds of photographs of either the Ta and I, or the three of us together. We live in Seattle and Ta and I have been on probably 12 little vacations in the local area. We live in Seattle and have been camping and/or stayed in condos maybe 12 times (maybe 8 with Freddy). Mount Rainier 4 or so times, the Washington Coast (maybe 3 times), Oregon Coast (2 times) a few other times I am missing I'm sure. Photographs of every trip, literally hundreds. We had planned to only include 3-5 photos of each trip (trying to get ones with us all or combinations of Freddy/Ta, Me/Freddy, and Ta/me). Lots are of one of use (many of Freddy by himself, but other photos in the same place with us all).
3. Ta and I have been to Thailand 3 times together-a lot of pictures of our "Thailand Wedding" (8 months after our Seattle wedding)-this one had much of Ta's family and it was a real Thai wedding with the 9 Monks, all of the ceremonial stuff (pouring water on our hands together, the guest tying the string on our wrists, candle lightings and prayers. Many pictures of us on our honeymoon (South of Thailand, snorkeling, sightseeing, etc) many with the bundle of strings around our wrists (you're supposed to leave them on for 7 days). Lots of pictures of her family with us at the wedding and since the wedding.
4. Ta and I went to a small village in Northern Thailand where we work for a non-profit called Engineers without Borders", I work maintain their water systems and teach the Chiang Mai University to do Coliform testing and Ta acts as interpreter. This is through my University (EWB Student Chapter) and we have receipts and pictures of it all. (3 trips evenly spaced over about 2 years). Also, a "thank you letter" from my supervisor (Chair of the Department and heavily involved in EWB) for Ta's interpreter volunteering on Department Letterhead from our first trip. Lots of emails between Ta and people involved with EWB in Thailand while we were there last time (Sept 2010).
5. Most of the Birthdays of me, Ta, and my parents where most of us attended. 1/2 of Freddy's birthdays. We have pictures of most of these-some have the birthday cake in the picture.
6. Every Christmas with the two of us, a few with my parents and us, and a few with us and Freddy (some with parents). A few other holidays. Lots of pictures but many with not all of us in the picture.
7. A fair and a car race at the same County Fairground. We might have 1-2 pictures of this-I think we might have had only a cell phone camera and the pictures might be lost.
8. Group medical insurance statement of benefits through my work and other evidence that we are involved with the same doctor (the prenancy stuff where we were all in the doctor's office and then the three way emails-printed through the hospital website.
9. 2 1/2 years of regular cell phone communications. But both of the phones are in my name, although we each use one. And calls between the phones and our landline at the house.
10. Tax returns (married filing jointly for 2008 and 2009). Haven't done 2010 yet but will file jointly on this one also (so no real evidence except for our W-2s both have our home address
Stuff where little or no evidence that I am directly involved:
1. Seattle Community College transcripts. One receipt from my CC for one quarter (I think I can get evidence from my CC statement). Pick her up several days per week, but no evidence of this. (Just the fact that our two schools are 1 mile apart).
2. Some circumstantial evidence of things, but I don't know if I should include it.
As far as Ta having a big part of Freddy's life, not much evidence. (I should get a statement from my ex-wife about our family's relationship-me, Ta, and Freddy-this just crossed my mind).
Many emails between me and Ta, some between my ex and me with references to Ta-and some referencing one of our trips to Thailand.
I don't know how much of all of this we should have in the application. I don't want them to have questions about having one of my favorite pictures with Freddy and my best friend with their backs turned looking at the ocean-Ta, me and Freddy were on this trip.
I don't know how many of these pictures I should include, most of them clear pictures of Ta and me (no evidence of Freddy but he was there), Ta and Freddy (I was there but not in the picture), Me and Freddy (where Ta is there but not in the picture). Hundreds of pictures, most good ones.
I don't want to send them all unless it is a good idea. We have just a few of each trip in the application and I don't know if it can drag things out to have too many pictures.
But no joint electricity bills, cable TV bills, any bills I think. I didn't think of this over the last couple of years as important to get joint ones, and it makes me feel a little anxious to always be trying to do things primarily for the immigration deal.
I am absolutely confident that she will get her permanent green card, but I would prefer of course to not have to do an interview and "waste" the time when some don't have to go through the extra stuff like an interview. I want the application to be so solid that they don't need an interview, but we don't have a lot of the joint bill stuff that many are doing and/or advising people to do. Joint tax filing and health insurance makes sense to memakes sense for us, Health insurance, and vacations with pictures make sense to me, but getting our Garbage service on a joint bill doesn't seem natural to me.
Should we send everything, including what they might have followup questions about (like an out of focus picture on a trip). I don't want to send so much stuff where some of it they may not understand and then want us to answer questions about one item (picture let's say, or some other document where they are not absolutely clear of its meaning-like her individual bank statement coming to our address. I have heard that this helps, but I don't want to raise any eyebrows over an "extra and not necessary" document.
Too much stuff. I thought we were pretty much done with the "Conditional" greencard. I didn't know that there was another round of this stuff. I would have been nervously thinking about saving every receipt and every bill being joint and all of the other stuff that would "prove" that our relationship is genuine.
Some questionable stuff: Ta worked at a Thai restaurant where the owner was convicted of paying people to marry Thai people-fake marriages. Also, the attorney we used for the original green card got in some type of trouble or allegations with potential immigration fraud-I suppose this might get looked at.
I guess it is just too much to expect-to not get a "waste of everybody's time" interview when they should be going after the fake ones. But I guess this is their job-to weed out the fake ones using evidence like a previous employer being convicted of immigration fraud.
If I knew I would have this much stress over all of this, I would have probably have paid the fee for an attorney to do this for us. (But no offense to anybody, I don't think we should have to get legal representation with all of the evidence that I thought we had).
All of this makes me want to express a little bit of emotion (love and admiration for my wife and her love for "our" son-he really is our son, just not biologically. And the non-helpfulness of the USCIS Customer Service-I would hope they would be able to answer a question besides "what the fee is" or "where to send it".
Anyway, sorry for the long post.
I would be thankful for any advice anybody can give me.
Thanks.
