Foreign pregnant partner success, thank you!

[surfer99]

Hi everyone, just a very quick thank you for the guidance you gave us in our previous thread at http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=42529.

Particularly JandM - we appreciate your input so much. It may interest and assist others to know what we did. Within the space of three weeks:

• Established NZ as my permanent place of residency (signed a lease for a flat, applied for an IRD number, opened a company, got joint bank accounts, signed up for a 24 month phone plan, got work contract offers, had a lot of documentation sent to our address) - I am Australian by the way.
• Compiled our evidence of relationship (letters from places we stayed together in the preceding 8 months - of which four were spent apart, screenshots and prints of email communication, we also registered as defacto during in our two weeks in Aus, included about 30 photos, a video, around 10 letters from friends and colleagues and freshly opened joint bank account details from both Aus and NZ).
• Submitted the application along with general medical (no X-Ray as she is pregnant). Held breath.
• 10 days later received the Partnership-based Temporary Visa. It was granted for nine months as she needs to have a chest X-Ray after the baby is born. Then we can of course extend it or apply for Residency as we will have been living together for 12 months. Plus have a baby
• Breathed out and still don't really believe it.

Some documents which could help other people might include things like a joint letter from a financial adviser (intent for financial interdependence), your names listed together on the internet, i.e. in joint project websites or blogs. It all helps. We also included about 20 kissing photos and I poured my heart out in the opening letter (all true of course). Our application envelope was so fat it wouldn't fit through the post box at INZ (we had to give it to the counter staff).

Anyway, thanks again to you all and good luck to everyone in the process. We very much look forward to bringing a new Kiwi into the world next May and are very happy to call NZ home. We haven't even left Auckland CBD yet so once I get paid (I got a job offer today) we will go and check out... you guessed it... Piha and the surf beaches

[JandM]

Congratulations!

Awww... Piha. Mica twinkles in the black sand, and blue sparks in the waves when seen through sunglasses. I LOVE that place - tell it I'll be back one day!

[mikeandcaroline]

Great news.