An "administrative error" has left a dad-to-be thousands of miles from his heavily pregnant wife.
Lidoly and Simon Barrett have four weeks to plan where their first child will be born after a Home Office 'error' delayed their spousal visa application which would allow the pair to be reunited for their first born's arrival.
The couple say they paid over £4,000 for their visa application, with priority services, on March 12 with a guide to have a decision in six weeks.
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But almost 15 weeks on, Lidoly, 38, who is 32 weeks pregnant and living alone more than 3,000 miles away in Montreal, is still desperately awaiting a decision about returning to the UK to be with her husband.
And with most airlines allowing travel up to 36 weeks pregnant, time is running out for the couple to plan their future.
Simon, 44, from Heaton, said: "The experience has been emotionally draining and incredibly stressful.
"Every time we have a conversation about what we're going to do, birth plans and how we're going to be parents it's all hypothetical and conditional on this decision.
"We can't really have those proper conversations about the birth because it's always 'we'll have to wait and see'.
"If we have a decision that's a no it will be disappointing, but we can accept it and make a plan. Right now we can't make a plan either way."
Lidoly and Simon, who married in January, met when they were studying at the University of Glasgow in 2019, while Lidoly was in the UK on a student visa.
She returned to Canada in March 2020 and the couple fell pregnant when Simon travelled to visit Lidoly between November 2020 and March 2021.
Upon Simon's return, the couple immediately applied for their visa, believing it would give them enough time for a decision and to plan their future.
However, now Simon is unsure whether he will have to quit his job and leave his home in order to be with his wife.
And Lidoly is reaching the end of her tenancy agreement, which means she needs to decide whether she will remain in her Canadian home for another year.
Simon added: "We anticipated that the application might take longer with Brexit and the pandemic, which is why we paid for priority services because a decision was important to give us that time to plan.
"But now we're coming to a point where a decision either way is going to be too late.
"UKVI [UK Immigration and Visas] have Lidoly's passport so she cannot travel anywhere to find support with her family in Cuba, friends in the US or with me here.
"We are rapidly approaching the point where whatever the decision, my wife will no longer be able to travel, and I will have to potentially leave behind my job and home in the UK to go and be with her."
Simon, a researcher at Newcastle University, said decisions on spousal visas without priority services takes around 12 weeks on average.
With only a text message to confirm their application had been received, this caused him to become concerned about their application.
However, in his efforts to contact the UK Immigration and Visas helpline (UKIV), Simon claims he was told that they were unable to look into individual cases.
The couple say they have had no explanation of a delay, no requests for more information or documents and have paid for queries to UKVI eight weeks ago, where they were told that their application is open and in the final stages.
ChronicleLive contacted the Home Office which has now apologised for the delay and said it will be in contact with the couple as soon as possible about their application.
A Home Office spokesperson said: "Due to an administrative error there was a delay in completing the assessment process for this case.
"We have now resolved this issue and will be in contact with the applicants as soon as possible about their application.
"We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience."
