I'm official

It has been a five month process, and today was the day to finalize the deal.  When my husband accepted the job offer that brought us to Japan, we knew we needed to get a visa for me to be able to stay in the country.  By the time we got around to talking with his company about how to proceed, we had exactly 8 weeks until they wanted us in Japan.  Obtaining a spouse visa takes 6-8 weeks and we didn't want to take the chance of it taking too long. 

After a lot of back and forth, we decided I would enter Japan on a visitor's visa and then apply for a change in status.  We had a high chance for approval since I am married to a Japanese citizen and my son holds dual citizenship.  But it still wasn't a guaranteed deal.

There was paperwork and more paperwork and more paperwork.  We were working with a law firm that made sure all the paperwork was done correctly.  It provided a lot of peace of mind throughout the process.

The last time we went through this process, when we got a greencard for my husband, we did all of the work ourselves.  But times have changed and we didn't have the time or focus to do it properly.  Since the company was paying for the lawyers, we were happy to accept the help.

Before we left the US, we provided information to the law firm.  Then after we arrived, I went to the office and provided original documents.  Then we waited.  I joked that it was like buying a house - hurry up and wait.  Get some work done and then wait for the process to take it's course.  Each time we were told a timeline and it took the exact longest length of the time promised.

Two weeks ago, I traveled to the office to hand over my passport.  They had secured my Certificate of Eligibility and needed my passport to finalize my visa.  Handing over my passport was pretty weird for me since I have it ingrained that you should never surrender it to anyone.  I was told that the visa would take between one day and two weeks to get the visa.  Exactly 14 days later, my husband received the call that my visa had finally arrived.  They couriered it over to him so we would do the last step in the process.

This morning we went over to the ward office to get my address printed on my Japanese residence card.  My husband went into work late so he could complete all the paperwork on my behalf.  It took less than a half an hour.  Just like that and it was done.  I'm now a resident of Japan.