Immigration Nightmares

To begin with, we knew we wanted to get married in September of 1999 (a decision we made during the '99 Hog Roast Face-2-Face). We kind of put off the formalities, waiting until after Christmas... In February 2000 we found out I was 2 months pregnant and that's when we decide to speed up our plans.

And that's when all the nightmares began...

First of all, my husband could not enter Canada again without a Minister's Permit (owing to a 10 year old DUI charge which is considered a criminal offence in Canada). We never realized it would take more than 6 months to process this. Believe it or not, at the time of writing this (Sept. 2000) he still hadn't met my parents!! Getting married in Canada was out of the question... the baby would be born well before the Permit would clear.

We definitely wanted our son to have my husband's last name (not my maiden name) so we had no choice but to marry in the USA at this point. So, me being a Canadian citizen, we wondered what would we have to do to get married? We were told my immunizations would have to be up to date. Well... I tried in vain to get my medical records from Canada. This delayed us by over a month. Finally we decided to get my blood tests here instead --- we'd worry about whether or not I was immune to MMR after we got the results (thinking if I wasn't, well --- I couldn't get the immunization shots owing to the pregnancy anyway so it would mean we wouldn't be able to get married --- or so we thought). Thank heavens for Rosie, the nurse who did the blood tests, because she knew we didn't need the results to get married. All we needed was a form stating the blood tests had been done. Whew! We were married right after this.

Then the real nightmares began... the immigration process. We're still going through the massive amounts of paperwork and aren't certain how it will all pan out yet. As soon as it is all done I'll add our story to this section of my sight to help others out there who may be wondering what the procedures are. Until then, wish us luck. We need all the luck we can get right now. *S*