The Verdict is in...

BUT they haven't revealed what it is yet! 

On Monday I was doing my daily check-in at www.immigrate2us.net and I saw that someone on the El Salvador forum had their waiver approved.  The exciting part was they turned their visa waiver in the EXACT same day as we did!  I got so excited I could hardly breathe.  I knew our turn would be next and I was determined to find out if the embassy had received the additional hardship evidence I had turned in.

You see last Wednesday I finally compiled all my new documentation of my current hardships now that we are living in the U.S.  I kept feeling this urgency to get the papers to the embassy and my attorney was not being any help.  I decided to scan everything and send it by e-mail.  I kept wondering if I should fax it as well, but I kept hearing that it was really expensive to fax internationally, like $5/page and I had about 22 pages.  I emailed my attorney about this and once again didn't get any feedback.

So back to Monday.  I decided I would call the embassy and find out if they received my additional evidence.  I searched everywhere for the phone numbers.  I probably called about 10 different numbers to all different places to find out what I could.  I finally found a number that worked.  

I got right through to the exact person I needed to speak with directly at the embassy.  She was very nice and helpful.  I told her I was checking to see if they received the evidence for my husband's case.  She asked for his name and looked up his file.  She told me that they did not receive the evidence, but that a decision has been made on our case!  I was in shock.  I repeated what she said.  BUT, she then said she couldn't tell me the decision or any details on the phone.  That I have to either wait for the letter or have Eduardo go into the office next Monday.  He could have gone today, Wednesday, but of course they were closed for holidays today :(  I asked again if they had taken into consideration my additional evidence and she said there is no record of receiving that, but they did make a decision on the case.  Ugh!!  

So I'm not sure how to feel at this point.  I was flying high on Monday.  I seriously felt like I had 10 shots of espresso in me and didn't know what to do or who to call.  Thank God Eduardo made it home and we were able to talk about everything.  We are both worried about them not knowing I am living in the States now, but hopefully it doesn't matter.  Hopefully they approved us anyway and we can move on.  

Since it's under one year since we filed our waiver, we hopefully will not have to do the medical exam again and provide the current taxes and some other documents.  Those things seem to set people back even after the approval.  My mom and stepdad are our co-sponsors and they haven't even done their 2010 taxes so I'm praying to God they don't ask for them!!  

So stay tuned to what happens next.  Will it be an Approval or a Denial???  Let's all pray for the best :)

Good news is that even if it's a denial, I recently found out that it will actually be a NOID, which is an Notice of Intention to Deny.  They send you that and give you 30 days to send in additional evidence that may help your case and eventually end up with the approval.  So either way it comes out, I feel hopeful that it will work out for us.  I would then be able to send my documents in again at that point.  

But again, let's hope it's just an approval!!!  I'll let you know what happens on Monday...