In my purse I carry with me a piece of paper.  The paper is ragged, worn, and dog-eared at the edges.   I received the letter on the 28th of November, 2009 from the UK Border Agency, confirming they have received my Indefinite Leave to Remain visa application, and the letter told me my reference number.  I’ve had this letter with me every day since then, every day for the last seven months.

Numerous times I called to check the status of my application, and the paper would be wrought in my hands, or scribbled upon as I anxiously waded through the options on the telephone, hoping to get through to the right people… hoping to have an answer.

The nerves came from a payment issue.  By February my application still had not been processed.  At this time, a fraudster took it upon himself to withdraw hundreds of pounds of my money from my bank account via paypal, and my bank instinctively canceled my debit card… the same debit card whose details were in the unprocessed application.

I called to give them new details, only to my horror they stated they would not be able to amend anything on my application.  So I was left to ask the only question which mattered:  What will happen when you try to process the payment?  The answer?  The application would be failed.

It was at this point I had to hand the phone over to my husband, as I could no longer breathe.  Image after image ran through my mind, scenarios of what my life would look like if I was suddenly not allowed to stay in the country legally.  I thought about losing my job and with it, my right to maternity leave. I thought about having to leave the country in order to apply again, and spending time away from my husband.  I thought about what it would look like to lose the flat in which we lived, because we would no longer be able to afford the rent if I lost my job.

The stress was unlike any I had ever felt before.  I cried on the couch, shaking with fear over what this meant for my future, and the future of our budding little family.  At the same time, I felt the overwhelming guilt that the stress I was feeling wasn’t healthy for the baby, at the time 4 months along.  But I couldn’t stop.  I couldn’t compose myself long enough to answer any of the questions Mark was trying to ask, I couldn’t even hear them being asked.  It felt as though this little life I had managed to built for myself and Mark over the last two years was going to be taken away from me.

Once I was able to, I messaged an immigration advisor I knew through an immigration board.  She gave me her number and I called, crying, that this was the worst case scenario.  But it wasn’t, as she told me.  She told me what I needed to do, that it would be sent back and I would appeal it, that it happens all the time.  I don’t honestly know what I would’ve done that day had I not had that conversation, for someone who knew the ropes to tell me it would be okay, that I wouldn’t lose my job or have to reapply.  The thank yous I have given do not adequately describe the gratitude I feel for having someone out there say it was all going to be okay.

I sent a letter.  I sent a letter to the Border Agency with a money order for the fee amount, explaining the situation and begging them to attach the money order to my application.  I then waited.  I waited several months, calling them to try to get some kind of update, any indication my money order letter was a success.  And in my hands was the original letter they sent me months ago.  Names and call dates written on it, the paper thinned at the creases where it had been folded time and time again, my application number standing off the page, a number I practically knew by heart.

May rolled around and I had still not heard anything.  My husband and I contacted the local Member of Parliament, who agreed to contact the Agency on our behalf.  We wrote two letters of formal complaint, and I sent half a dozen emails.  May turned to June, and still nothing.

Then today, as I went to the door to open it for a friend, I noticed I had a package.  I brought it inside and sat it down as we talked.  Glancing at it, I saw it was postmarked from Croydon, and suddenly I knew what it was.  I ripped it open, and inside was the binder containing everything I had worked so hard to collect and assemble over the last two years.  It was a record of my life, my marriage certificate, proof of where I lived and mail throughout the two year period proving it. It was a declaration: I exist, I live here, I have made a life for myself.

I opened the binder and found my passport beneath a letter from the Border Agency stating the application’s approval.  Nervously, I found the large stamp they placed in the back: Residence Permit.  I was granted the ability to remain in the country for an indefinite period of time.  The song and dance was over, the music stopped playing, and we could all finally go home.

Now I’ve removed the original letter from the Border Agency, dated the 28th of November, 2009, from my purse.  I no longer need to carry it, no longer need my application number close to hand, no longer need to stress the already worn fibers of the page between my fingers in yet another blood pressure raising phone call.  I finally have the visa.

I finally have it.

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