Back in Dhaka

Note: In the interest of you all actually understanding what happens in my life, I’m posting this, even though it’s wildly out of date. I actually wrote it back in May. But this was happening then. Further updates are to come, promise.

So… we made it! We’ve been back for a week now. Getting back was crazy!

So because of Trey’s traumatic birth, we weren’t sure he’d get a medical clearance at all. So we started making contingency plans, including Scott bidding on an unaccompanied post in Pakistan. But as we got further along, we (and the State Department) realized that Trey was doing great, and that he’d probably get cleared to come back.

They wanted to wait for his 3-month appointment with the neurologist before deciding, but it looked like he’d be cleared to go home, as long as the doctor thought he was doing well.

Then, the week before the appointment, we found out that Dhaka might be going into Authorized Departure.

For those who don’t know, Authorized Departure is a state where families are allowed to leave post, if they so choose. They’re given plane tickets and a Separate Maintenance Allowance, and get to go live anywhere they want, pretty much. The downside, though, is that nobody under Chief of Mission Authority (meaning, embassy employees and their families) is allowed to enter the country without permission.

So if Dhaka went into Authorized Departure, we wouldn’t be allowed to come back, no matter how healthy Trey was.

It was about 72 hours between finding out there was going to be a meeting, and finding out the results of that meeting. Needless to say, those 72 hours were very stressful for me.

The good news, though, was that at the meeting they decided to wait two weeks before making a final decision. Which gave us just enough time to get Trey cleared and come home.