Stuck in a holding pattern

"This is your captain speaking. We are not cleared for landing, so we are going to level off and take a holding pattern."

I heard these words on a flight once. What it meant was that for some reason our plane was not going to be allowed to land at the destination. We just flew in circles for awhile, just waiting for whatever issue to be cleared up.

Right now I hear that captain in my head saying that same phrase over again everyday. My move to Sweden is in a holding pattern. What is causing this delay appears to be the Migrationsverket. These are the lovely people in Sweden who decide if my daughter and I will be granted our residency permits.

We have been moving along well with our schedule, in fact we have been moving ahead of schedule. All of our applications were submitted quickly, and had been processing pretty fast. We had our yard sale, and sold almost everything we own. We put in notice at our jobs, and are currently training replacements. We are only about 10 weeks for our planned move date. There are only a few loose ends to tie up and we are off on the new adventure.

Then the captain speaks!

The Migrationsverket has not approved our residency permits. In fact thanks to a "clerical error" they lost the record of my interview for about a month. Now that it is found, we are stuck waiting for a decision. We have to give notice at our house in about three weeks. We have to by airline tickets. We cannot get the tickets without the visa's and once we give notice at our house we will be homeless 30 days later. All I can do is sit and wonder if we are going to make it.

The problem with holding patterns is there is only so much fuel on the plane. There is a point of no return, where if the captain decides to he cam turn the plane around and safely land. Once that point is crossed the only options are to clear for landing, or run out of fuel and plummet to the ground.

The point of now return is quickly approaching.

I am only praying that we get cleared to land!