Originally Posted by Ettie

The i485a is something else entirely. It is for when you had a petition submitted for you prior to April of like, 2001 or so. Just the i485 is fine for people in our situation IF you entered with inspection. If you entered without, then usually people will get Advance Parole to get that inspection part fulfilled.

My situation was that I entered with a tourist visa but my family was already in process of getting employment sponsorship (H1b) and so my status changed to holding an H4 visa where they gave me a different I94 from the time of entry. My husband and I self-filed and sent in i485, i130, and i765 (extra EAD in case the adjustment takes longer than expected), medical forms and the biographic info sheets required for the i485. We included copies of birth certs, marriage cert, last three tax returns (form 1040 only no worksheets), payment stubs, joint assets docs, retirement docs that show the other as beneficiaries, bills, and aprtment leases for our time living together.

March 28ish - sent application
May 5thish - biometrics
May 15ish - RFE because I forgot to include the number of people we have in household. The form didn't let me type it in and I forgot to write it in; this caused them to think we were under the poverty line because math can't divide by 0. I had to resend our whole tax return, worksheets and all 108 pages because I invest a lot/basis. Also sent more monthly asset statements (basically March +April to give them the latest).
May 22ish - they received RFE docs.
June 15ish - EAD received
June 25 - notice for interview on July 25th
July 25 - interview and petition/adjustment approved
August 1 - physically recieved green card

The interview was straightforward. We went in at the same time, swore an oath to tell nothing but the truth, then the officer asked for the originals of the certs. She also asked a bunch of questions on if I've ever been arrested, was a terrorist or part of a group - criminal stuff. Then she started asking questions. Most of the initial questions were directed to my husband and she asked where/how we met, who cooks, how many were in our wedding, where it was. Ours seemed more conversational that led to talk of parents, their professions, and siblings. Like when my husband was telling her of our wedding story, he mentioned that his brother was the officiant and that led to the sibling partblahblah. Nothing to worry about just tell it like it is. Towards the end she asked about new proof of living/being together where we gave her the new bills, new car docs, new lease - all copies. After that, she picked out a couple of pictures to keep in our huge file (mostly tax returns), then told us there is no decision yet. She gave us a piece of paper basically saying they will review one last time and give us an answer "shortly". Was pretty disappointed when we walked out but then looked it up and apparently it's just standard procedure - still a chance to get approved same day. So ofcourse I checked the case status later that night and it said our case was approved and that the GC was in production.

Pew that was longer than I thought, but hope it helps! I was preeetty darn nervous right before too cause I had no idea what to expect. 'Course, you might get an officer who chooses to do things differently. My friend had one who just fired question after question and took her EAD at the end because he approved them on the spot.