paperwork after you are home, what if USCIS makes a mistake? A change in date of birth lengthens process too.

Well,
It has been my experience that when you come into the country and submit all your papers and USCIS makes a mistake on your child's perm resident card then you are about a month behind on all papers touching USCIS from that point on. If you change your child's date of birth this will also lengthen the process due to the fact that they have to verify this at every single turn. This is our general time-line for papers after we came home with the boys.

Child 1

1. home in Aug 08
2. card came in Sept. 08
3. USCIS error
4. fixed with new card by Jan 09 (4 months)
5. ATIN #took 12 weeks (or 3 months) mid Jan to April 10th.
6. validation (4 months) and birth certificate (an additional 3 months) March to Oct 2009
7. COC took 6 months. Applied in October 2009, had to re-submit papers due to date of birth change in March 2010. Got it in April 2010. (this was also lengthened by the dob change.)
8. SS# applied Jan 18, 2011 received .............. March???? 8 weeks (or 2 months)? The estimate was 14 days.

Child 2

1. home in Aug 08
   
2. card came in Sept. 08 NO errors
   
3. ATIN #took 8 weeks (2 months) mid Jan to mid March 2009
   
4. validation (4 months) and birth certificate (an additional 3 months) March to Oct 2009
   
5. COC took 5 months. Applied in October 2009, had to re-submit papers due to date of birth change in Feb 2010. Got it in March 2010. (this was also lengthened by the dob change.)
   
6. SS# applied Jan 18, 2011 received Feb 14. about 4 weeks (one month). The estimate was 14 days.