Update

Well, we still haven't heard anything too exciting yet, but yesterday morning I received an email from Utah Senator Bob Bennett's constituent liaison assigned to Provo. She said that Senator Bennett had read the email and that he had asked her to directly contact me and help with the case. So after a few emails back and forth in which she asked for information about our case, she was able to contact the California Service Center of USCIS. She inquired about our case and also informed them that Charbel is pregnant. I was hoping that they would say, "Alright, we'll get it approved today." No such luck was to be had. They did look up our case though and said that it had been sent to an adjudication officer and was being processed on schedule. After looking up "adjudication" on google, apparently an adjudication officer should be the one to make the final decision. Nevertheless, my experiences with USCIS prevent me from getting too excited, because processing seems to include sitting on a cluttered desk covered in dust and potato chips for a few months, so we'll see how it goes. She said we should get a notice of action within 45 days ... We are hoping that it is sooner than that, because as soon as they approve it in California they still have to send it to Mexico so that they can give us an interview date, a process which should take less than a month.  I do have some extra hope today however. On the website they allow you to enter your case number and it gives you updates and says when the last time the case was updated. Well, from September until now it has said "initial review". From September until January 4th, the "last updated" date hadn't changed. It changed on the 4th because I changed my address and they must have entered it in the system. Well last night I checked again and the "last updated" date had changed to Jan. 21st. Well I figured that that was because they had to look it up yesterday. However, today I checked again and the "last updated" date was changed to Jan. 22nd, meaning that they must have at least looked at our case again today. However, the status is still labeled as "initial review". After investigating online, a lot of people said that they received the approval letter without the status ever changing online, so my confidence in this "user-friendly-Obama Administration designed and approved-efficient" website isn't too high. But here is to hoping! Anyway, if we hear anything else everyone will know very quickly!