Employment Based Greencard

our experience for myself and my wife from start to finish obtaining employment based green card under EB2 category in 2016-2019

Background:
work as data science team lead in financial industry in NY, live in CT
advanced degree holder from ivy league school in US
German birth, wife Chinese birth
Married after PERM was approved, were married for 2 years before attending interview
Have a child born in US

Timeline:
10/2016 Ask employer for sponsorship
-- preparing job duties and experience
2/2017 Prevailing wage application submitted
6/2017 Prevailing wage application received
-- preparing job advertisements
7/2017 Test of labor market start
9/2017 Test of labor market end, preparing employment verification
11/2017 PERM submitted
5/2018 PERM submitted
-- preparing I-140 and I-485 applications. Priority date is current so filing concurrently
9/2018 I-140 and I-485 submitted
10/2018 biometrics
10/2018 receive EAD cards (valid for 1Y)
-- gov shutdown 12/2018-1/2019…
3/2019 RFE received for employment verification
4/2019 RFE response submitted
5/2019 I-140 approved
6/2019 transfer to NBC MO
6/2019 RFE for Chinese birth certificate received
7/2019 EAD renewal submitted
8/2019 EAD renewal receipt notice (never received the cards… but still needed the receipt notice therefore glad we paid for renewal even though we haven’t used the cards)
10/2019 interview notice, scheduled for November
11/2019 attend interview
2 days after interview: USCIS online status changed to “chard is being produced”
1 week after interview: receive card
1 week+3 days after interview: receive I-485 approval notice

Interview background:
Hartford CT in afternoon. We waited for ~1h to be called in and spent 1.5h in the actual interview.
Myself and my wife attended with lawyer. Lawyer didn’t do all that much but did help with several questions where we were unsure and we felt good that we had a lawyer with us we felt drained after the interview...

Interview experience:
The officer originally assigned called in sick and another person had to take over. He had to do an initial case review first. Also for some reason our background checks hadn’t come in when we attended the interview
Did ID check and employment verification for both of us (passport, DL, EAD, H1B, pay stubs)
Started going through I-485 form. Recommend you take copies of your form so you can follow along
Confirmed details on I-485 form. Asked wife/husband to confirm several details eg birth date, parents names, parents birth days and where they live. Didn’t ask anything about my work other than confirm my title.
Then in the middle of form said “give me everything you want to submit”. So we gave him our materials for bona fide marriage. We didn’t give him absolutely everything we had brought, lawyer said what we gave is sufficient evidence which is the recommended items on the interview notice. He did ask for last years tax return (filed jointly).
Then went through every single security question on I-485 form. Had some explaining to do for communist party and red light ticket. Communist party questions: “How long and why were you member? Are your parents too? Why no longer member?”. Red light questions: “What happened? Did you pay fine? Did you go to court?”
Continued going through form
Then tell me about your relationship? Wanted to know timeline. Where we met? “Then what”? Why did to travel to [location] for your first trip? When did you decide to get married? Was there a proposal? Then what? Then what? Then what?
Finished with “any questions for me”? Then gave us the white sheet with “case is under review”.

Gotchas for Chinese applicants:
If you don’t have a birth certificate, you can request something equivalent in China, the person there was very familiar with the process
Think about your response to the question “were you ever part of the communist party?”. Might also add to membership section.
If you use an English name in addition to Chinese name can list that under “have you had any other names”.