It has been a long, gruesome day of heart-failures. Suffice to say, my visa is stuffed up and I recieved a letter from medicare stating they'd contact from Dept of Immi stating my application was rejected. Spent all day trying to find out what was going on and what my status was - got 50 answers from 40 people including - the file was lost, they didn't know who my case worker was, the old case worker had quit after messing up some paperwork, they thought I'd left the country, they couldn't tell me anything - at all - period, I needed to come in and they couldn't guarantee deportation etc etc etc. Meanwhile I'm hysterical, terrified of La being ripped from my arms for months on end as they march me off to the next flight out, being forcefully weaned and loosing his mum in the same swipe, how Nic will cope with not only my being forced out but having to deal with La and everything on top of work etc. and how Cade, Sierra, Hope and Veri cope, chooks etc

Call to the complaints and complicance depts as well as the ombudsmen quickly caught attention. The long and short of it is they "lost" a bunch of paperwork (read: they have no record of our phone calls - none of them, they have never recieved our changes of address sent in and "have been trying to find us a year" - despite not doing something really radical and y'know - ringing our mobiles. Or solicitors. Or migration agent. Or just noting the phone calls and forms sent in AFTER we replied to the case managers first query so the whole mess was avoided) and because there was nothing there for them thus to approve on they automatically denied it. So we were told to go asap to complicance in the dept of immi, which we were told the nearest office was in Dandenong. Rang them only to find out they closed in half an hour but more importantly - they didn't have a complicance dept there, I have to go to Lonsdale for that.

Only bit of good news is I've got some good people batting for me and the last call we got was my case worker saying (after noting she might still have to 'arrange for me to leave to an off-shore facility' and heartily disavowing we'd ever called them or notified them of anything or that my previous case worker WAS a case worker despite the paperwork I have in my hands for the previous 2 visas proclaiming her as precisely that and the envelope I have with her name on it listing her as case worker for my file) she would put me through for a bridging visa. So I have to show up there first thing tomorrow and hope she was being accurate in saying she can do a bridging visa and the other several people with more dire pronouncements were wrong. Mostly, that means hoping the ombudsman is doing a good job investigating what has happened to cause everything to be so damn muddled.

I'm still having horrific nightmares of La being pulled screaming and bawling out of my arms as I'm escorted to the plane and the bridging thing being incorrect advise when we show up there tomorrow. Certainly wouldn't be the first time what they've said and what happened vastly differ. I know it's probalby just my mind playing out worst case scenarios but it's chilling and unreal and absurdly real and terrifying all at the same time.

Anyone with good thoughts, prayers, wishes, hopes, energy etc to spare about 9 am tomorrow
and in the following weeks would be most appreciated.