My 10 year Looooong "Journey" to Oz and still not there!

Feeling the need for some "therapy" so decided to write my story down to see if it helps me..they say it does...so here goes...it might stop me going totally loopy!

My journey to Oz started 10 years ago! (well it un-officially started in 1978, aged 4, having seen Grease at the movies, and Olivia Newton-John became my idol - I wanted to live in Oz then!! In hindsight, I should have planned my career around the "Skilled visa" LOL!)

I went travelling in 1998, did the rough ride thru Africa, then landed in Perth. Fell in love with Australia immediately.
Long story short - go to Sydney in Nov 98, started work at Macquarie Bank and got sponsored.
Loved, loved, loved life there. Made some very special friends that I miss dearly every day.
Oh, I did get to see Olivia NJ in 2000 carrying the Olympic torch - I could nearly touch her - only, not 4 yrs old anymore- so, didn't mean as much lol!

Anyway, back to my life journey... in 2002, the emotional guilt of my family and friends in UK hit home and seeing some of my uk colleagues not get renewed business visa's due to clamping down, I figured I should head back home (even though my agent at the time said I should just marry an aussie - but i wasn't willing to marry for a visa)

So May 2002 I landed back on UK soil...in July my belongings arrived and I cried to the removal men and pleaded with them to turn round and take me with them! I knew I wasn't meant to live in the UK, it just didn't feel right. I had to head back to Oz for a month in the October 02, I missed my friends and life there so much...

But, life goes on... I retrained and headed into my new career. (AGAIN I didn't think to train in something that i could get a visa with derr!!) I put the idea of living in Oz out of my head as much as poss...or I would have gone crazee...

Dec 2002, met my hubby, for the first year, although I knew about his son, we didn't get too involved until we were sure, cos of the son etc... (the reason I say this is because people ask if I'm only with my hubby for the visa..)

Jan 04 my hubby told me that his son was migrating to Oz, as his sons mum had married an Aussie resident. My hubby hadn't thought about moving to be with them. His life was here and he resigned himself to that fact - as much as it hurt him (typical bloke, kept it in!!)
But obviously he was keen once I suggested it, he loved his little one, who was only 2.5yrs old.
After much searching and MANY agents telling us there was no way, we found our agent who said there was a way - Yippeee!!! I thought it was fate, this agent was linked to the agents I had used when I lived there before...he must be good!

Step son and family moved to Oz in Sept 04, he was 3 - it was heartbreaking for us all.

We met the agent (he's based in Sydney, so he came to UK for visit) in Sept 04, we were told about the CPV 143 and that it would only take 6 months...but would have to wait 2 years to apply. Still, we figured that we would be there in March 07! That seemed like forever...but we got on with our lives, visiting Oz as much as possible and having his son to stay.

Our last visit to Oz was in Aug 06, the last day when we had to leave his son, it was the first time he realised what was going on, and he sobbed, my hubby sobbed...I had shares in kleenex that day!! It was awful...but we were filled with hope as it was Sept 06 and we could apply, and still being told it would be about 9 months til we could move, planned our lives around that fact! Promising his son we'd be back by his 6th birthday.

Then the wait began...and we heard NO news...and in Jan 07 we realised our visa had been put in wrong category.

Still, reassured it was ok and wouldnt affect us, we kept believing our life in Oz would start soon. This time, the timeline was a year. GUTTED again, we just wanted to be there. I can't risk having kids in case of twins, but being very broody was hard. But after awhile, the thought that we would be there early 08 was ok, I could start trying for babies then.

So, you can imagine the utter horror when we found out that our agent had screwed up and not actually lodged our paperwork until Nov 28th 2007...a whole 15 months after he should. AND that the whole timeline is about 12 - 18 months...from now...
I can't do another year here....
Another year of not being with my step son and him missing his daddy and vice versa.
Another year of living in a place I hate (we live in East London - not nice!)
Another year of not having our own children.
Just another year of not being where we want to be. Especially when we should have a visa and actually be living our life already in Oz.

BUT due to all the cock-ups (can i say that?) hopefully there is some light at the end of the tunnel. We are still waiting for the mess to be fixed, but feeling very hopeful that it will, we are now hoping we'll be there in time for my step son's 7th birthday in July...but until the stamp goes on, I won't get my hopes up again - they've been dashed FAR too many times.
(there's more involved in this part of the story, but can't really go into that! Plus it would be full of **** words, as you can imagine we are rather p'd off)

My step son is here with us now on holidays, and now he's older, the emotions run higher and the questions about why we don't live with him in Bellingen are constant. The whole time he's been here, he's made comments about "when you move to Australia, we can do this...etc..."
It breaks our hearts to think that we should ALREADY be living with him, seeing him win his races at school, swim his first length, be in his first school play...all the things a father should naturally be involved with.

Hopefully the oz immi will see the need for us to get there soon and be kind to us...it's not our fault it was screwed up, all we did was trust our agent and all he did was ** ** our life up!

I thought I was overacting with my impatience...but then I read everyone else's posts who have been waiting maybe 6 months for visas and are impatient and I think - I have every right to be this impatient!

So that brings me up to today...still waiting...but hopeful

Oh, and this time when I move over, my parents will be following asap - so no guilt this time!
Do I feel better for writing this... not really, the only thing that will make me feel really better is a "yes, we'll help you and give you priority processing cos your agent was a total to**er!"

But, it does feel good to write it all down and see a reason for my frustrations and impatience...

hope i've not rambled too much, it all feels relevant (even the Olivia bit!!) - and hope it's not sent anyone to sleep

Clare xx