The Ostrom Family Adventures

It’s December 20th. My job in Hamilton is scheduled to start January 13th (less than 1 month). We wanted to be headed over on January 1, but are still working and waiting for my work visa to be approved.

Before you ask, Yes, this is a stressful process. :). Everything else is in place, the house is nearly prepared to rent out here. But, it seems that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) is very particular in their work visa process. Initially requesting more evidence (3 times) to prove that Mason and I are truly married and I’m not just bringing him along to sell there. (In Africa, my father was offered several very nice cows if I would marry a Swazi guy.)

After a fun exercise where I got to write out our relationship timeline (highly recommended btw) and send photo’s, bills, social media posts etc. to prove that we are actually in love and have a stable marriage that can withstand the move (and the visa process) we thought we were good to go.

Then, INZ, the detail-oriented organization that they are, found that my birth date was incorrect by 1 day on Leif’s birth certificate. I am embarrassed to say, in 12 years I have never noticed and through 2 passports, the US government, being just somewhat less detail-oriented, has never noticed. INZ said they could not approve our visa’s until Leif’s birth certificate was corrected.

Cool story, when you look up how to correct a birth certificate, it says it takes 10 months by mail. 😳. Thankfully, we now live in the capital of the state where Leif was born and are only about 20 minutes from the Department of vital records. (I’m renaming them the Ministry of important stuff or MIS) Mason went in person to MIS with all the documents to support the correction in my birthdate from 7/12 to 7/13 and couldn’t get into the building! All the doors were locked and finally a security guard came out and told him he couldn’t see anyone who worked at MIS but had to make an appointment on an iPad in the entry. Next available appointment was April 21!! 😬

Talking with Immigration New Zealand they were not going to budge until we had the corrected birth certificate. I went to the building on my next day off and God was certainly with me because the 2:30 appointment had not shown up and the 3pm appointment wasn’t there yet so she was able to fix the date on the birth certificate right then!!

It felt like a miracle and we submitted the new birth certificate and were waiting for the approved work visa’s anyway. Unfortunately, last Tuesday I received an email that said they were still considering not approving my work visa because of my health status. I have crohn’s disease and have gone through a lot to get healthy again and am currently fully in remission thankfully while on Stelara, which is a crazy expensive biologic medication that controls the auto-immune process. New Zealand doesn’t want to be responsible for paying for the medication for me so I have sent them a letter detailing our plan to make sure I can stay on the medication without the New Zealand Health system having to pay for it.

So now we are just waiting. Packing and still planning to leave early January, but waiting and realizing there is a chance this may not happen, which would be really disappointing.

More to come. . .