Heartbroken by Portugal, unable to move there with the family.

I applied for a GV in 2020 with wife and 2 kids. We planned to move there in 2023 and applied for schools and got everything ready. Unfortunately / Fortunately we got pregnant with our 3rd child at that time. We delayed the move to Portugal because moving mid pregnancy was not an option. The entire family has been on Golden Visas from 2020. We have endured delays, last minute biometric appointments for us and our kids in different locations (every renewal cycle), and a lot of other bureaucracy of which is too much to list. I have taken the language certificate and applied for citizenship. My wife in process with her language classes.

Now, we are unable to move to Portugal because we cannot get a family reunion visa for my youngest baby. We are going to have to turn down the school admissions for my older kids and cancel our apartment rental contract. My lawyer tells me I cannot even begin to apply for a family reunion visa for my child until my visa is renewed because it expired earlier this year and we didn’t get an appointment yet. Once we do apply, they say it takes up to 3 years for it to process.

We wanted to move to Portugal and the bureaucracy is keeping us away. Now, with the new timelines, it looks like we will never move there with our kids. Possibly around 20 years down the road we might be able to retire there, but for now it’s but a dream.

We are heartbroken.