Visa Drama

Every so often something happens that completely throws you off and you wonder what to do ... becuase to begin with you believe you have done the right thing and stuck to the rules ... now what? Break the rules, lie??

Hubby and I are expecting our "Bandito" (as Hubby likes to refer to him/her), and we hoped my parents would be able to visit from Sri Lanka to give us a hand in the first few challenging months and then hopefully spend some wuality time with us as the miserable weather improves and the spring bulbs blossom. So they go ahead and apply for their six month Canadian visitor's visa at the High Commission in Colombo. They had all their papers in order, just as they did the last time they visited. All they had was a letter of invitation and our tax papers, and they were granted a three-month visa, stating that first time visitors are only granted a three month, single-entry visa, although they had applied for a multiple-entry visa. This time, being their second time we had hoped it would be a six month visa, but apparently not. Since we were honest about the pregnancy and the reason for the visit, they granted them a three-month visa, the reason being there was no letter from my Physician stating that I am in fact pregnant! 

This makes absolutely no sense to me because, they did grant her a visa without that letter. It would have made sense to reject the application out right and ask her to come back with a letter. Why just reduce the duration of her stay?

To add to this nonsense, the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website does not state anywhere that we ought to include a letter from a doc, they only need proof of financial support and I know there is enough. Well, it was adequate to grant them a visa the first time. To top it off, the CIC website does not talk about a three month visa at all. Or I must have missed it. We could apply for an extension, but that takes 74 days (not sure working or not) to process, and we don't have that kind of time. Ahhhhhh... I can do without this stress right now. 

I really don't understand how these things work, and who bloody makes these decisions!! So anyone applying for visas such as these, include all the possible letters and papers possible and hope and pray that it lands in the hands of a sensible person behind the counter. I do believe that is what ultimately matters, which makes the whole process really unfair and the rules/laws rather silly to have in place.