Melbourne Australia anyone?!? Meant to emigrate early 2009 and TERRIFIED!!!

[Paranoid1stTimer]

Hi

My partner and I started the visa application process earlier this year so we can move to Melbourne, Australia in early 2009. Now all we have left to do is to get our police checks and medicals once the baby arrives (which should be March 08) and I am completely panicking about the whole thing. We always wanted to have kids together but as usual everything happens at once so the second we started our visa application and paid a migration agent to handle everything, I found out I was pregnant. We are over the moon about the baby and everything but the reality of taking a small child to live on the other side of the world is really daunting although I do believe the quality of life he/she will have would be better over there than in the cr@ppy part of Glasgow we can currently afford to live.

Anyway, I guess I am just putting out feelers to find out if anyone else is in/has been in this kind of situation and how you got on moving to Australia and what I might be getting myself into. At this stage I know we could just decide "nah - lets just stay here" and all we would lose would be the cash spent on the actual application process. It is so much more complicated now with a baby on the way but we still really REALLY wanna go!!! ARGH! Help please

Any words of wisdom would be soooo appreciated

hello, you will be fine! have you had a visit to melbourne? I lived in Hamilton which is about 4 hours west of melbourne for a year. enjoyed melbourne moved up to sydney after that for three years before going back to the uk. just returned to aus with Dh and dd. pregnant 23 weeks. so we have done the al at once thing too! living in brisbane (well north) enjoying it so far been here 8 weeks. i ahd a chest xray done when i came over and worked in august but thats now void because of the pregnancy? mad! so have to re do that after the baby.
march will be here before you know it!

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!!! Funnily enough, I live about 10 minutes away from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire in Scotland which is a coincidence!!

Yeah - we spent 4 months in Melbourne renting a tiny apartment in South Yarra (not realising that this was one of the most expensive places to stay and we could have been somewhere a lot cheaper!!!) but we absolutely loved it. The weather, the lifestyle, the outdoors!! Amazing. I have heard that things have changed since we were there in 2005 such as house prices, politics etc.

I am just scared of the unknown really - DH is a joiner here and has a really good job at the moment AND is the main breadwinner (especially now the baby is on the way since we wouldn't be able to afford childcare but his job is good so couldnt get a government nursery place). I guess I am just worried we will go over there, not be able to get work/housing/anything and have to come back to the UK with nothing which is giving me the nightmares. DH is the one who really wants to do this - and dont get me wrong I really want to as well - but it just seems he hasnt looked into anything and I am trying to do it all at the same time as being pregnant. If it was left to him we would not even have got the docs away to the migration agent in the first place. I am sweating just typing this with the fear of it all!!!

ah just read other post. been to melbourne on jollys. cool. can you not get medicals done minus xray and move before march? just thinking of the stress of moving all the baby stuff, or buying twice?

tradesmen should be fine. getting a job. career one is a good web site for jobs. house prices are booming all over aus but still cheaper than the uk and with pR you will be fine. we are on a long stay business visa so are being floored by tax and mortgage rates would be mad so need Pr to get really settled. chnage of government so some concerns over interest rates but thats the same story the world over.

would reccomend getting a job before setting off tho. the cost of relocating is high regardless of how you do it. well worth it in my opinion, for what thast worth.

We wouldn't move before March because we have no money or anything and I really need DH family to help with new baby cos my mum died suddenly earlier this year AND we havent told my side of the family about plans to emigrate yet... Also, we want to save up some cash before going over and will have to sell the house etc. Ah, well.... The thought of staying here and stagnating in the same old place is just as terrifying as actually getting our act together and emigrating!!!

I will have a look on the career one site. Have been using the aus goverment job search site for a while to "research" but I guess I'll just have to get DH to type up some form of resume so I can send it off and get some advice from the construction companies.

Are you happy in Australia then? Have you settled in easily enough?

yeah so far so good. I think like anything new expect the worse and hopefully it will be better than that. Dh works all week and as from the end of jan that will be working all over australia. all my friends on this side of the planet are in sydney or melb so having to start afresh. but every one ..except the bizzare next door neighbours are really friendly. neighbours are just odd. have made friends with the neighbours next door to her and all the others seem great. Dd starts school in jan so will give us a better routine.
not managed yet to enjoy all the things i want to get back into. i love tennis, want horses again and body boarding all on the not whilst pregnant list.
I think the more you know about a place before you get there the better? I worked in brisbane for 8 weeks earlier this year and loved it.
telly is not the best here, awaiting the foxtel man (like sky) as we speak. must admit does not bother me too much but DH is past him self. broadband internet service to most areas, we are an hour from bris and still get it. cheap to phone the uk. lots of plus's really not too many down sides. taxes are high for high earners so a good accountant is vital.

Thanks for the feed back. Totally appreciate it. I will prob be back on here with questions questions questions but it's 4am here just now (see what I mean by waking up with nightmares about emigrating) and the baby is pressing down on my bladder so I'm off just now. On holiday until new yrs day then back to the grindstone for a few weeks before maternity leave starts YAY! I'll prob be on here racking up the birth questions at that point!!! Thanks again for your posts - hope the Foxtel man gets there soon!!

Don't worry about it, it's just the pregnancy freak-outs. Moving to Melbourne is not like moving to Burma or Guatemala. As you'll know from your four-month stay, it's exactly like Manchester with more sun, more flies and less street crime.

I freaked out when I got pregnant about three months after we'd moved to Shanghai: food poisoning (which I did indeed get, but only at 32 weeks when it was a lot less of a problem), everyone driving like they've got (a) a death wish or (b) diplomatic immunity, people doing nasty big phlobs on the street (nothing I've been able to do to avoid that ), etc etc etc. I think being pregnant makes you want to scuttle back to your comfort zone.

theage.com.au probably has a better job search facility than the govt one.