Hi Carly,
We've immigrated from Belgium to NZ nearly 6 years ago, one of our children being a (then 7 year old) child with cerebral palsy. We threw ourselves into a big adventure as we decided not to wait for PR. On a 9 month tourist visa we sold house and cars and packed everything in Belgium taking our little 2 boys with us. We looked for jobs and gained work/study permits while waiting for PR. Please keep in mind that it is of course almost 6 years ago so it might well be possible that rules and regulations have changed.
All I can suggest is do your homework, be positive, don't give up, provide lots of information. Keep a copy of the reports so you can take them with you in case you will need to visit a NZ specialist as well which was in our case requested.
Our approximate timeframe including all the extra medical issues with our son was:
August 2004: EOI submitted
September 2004: EOI selected
November 2004: Arrived in NZ on tourist visa, had 4 job offers to choose from after 2 weeks of interviews, applied for work permits
December 2004: Found jobs, applied and gained work permit for myself and husband and student permit for our (healthy) son but only a 6 month interim study permit for our son with special needs. The interim student permit came with a request to visit a NZ paediatrician for an additional medical report. (did lots of nail biting in this month as we thought we were going to have to pack our bags back to Belgium)
January 2005: submitted the NZ medical report and gained a proper student visum for our son. Phew, we could at least stay in NZ for 1 year!
February 2005: Received Invitation to Apply for PR, applied with all medical reports, we included all our Belgian reports and reused the report from the NZ paediatrician.
April 2005: PR approved for the whole family with no additional questions asked!!
Your daughter's disability seems a lot less significant than our son's (who doesn't qualify for ORRS funding but falls under High Health Needs funding, he receives full time support from a teacher aide at school for his physical disabilities and epilepsy) so I am hopeful for you but of course as I said I haven't followed up any of the new rules and regulations so please do your homework well.
Wishing all the best of luck to you and your family!
Lesly