When Amy Nela fell in love with an Albanian asylum-seeker she knew life would not be simple but she overcame the guns and red tape to find happiness.

Newly married, deeply in love and expecting her first child, Amy should not have had a care in the world.

Instead, she found herself in a foreign land, surrounded by gun-toting soldiers and fighting a personal war against bureaucracy.

Amy, 25, had fallen in love with Albanian asylum-seeker Ruzdhi Nela.

But their happiness was shattered when the Home Office said it considered the couple's marriage "precarious" and sent Ruzdhi back to Albania.

Determined not to lose her husband, or her life in Sussex, she took on the red tape and rifles.

Amy, a nurse, met Ruzdhi at a friend's barbecue in 2001.

She said: "I thought he seemed very shy and quiet but I was absolutely intrigued by him.

"My previous boyfriends were more extrovert, like me, but I was overwhelmed by Ruzdhi's spirit. Within a week I knew I wanted to marry him."

Ruzdhi spoke little English but told her his family had been persecuted by the Albanian regime because of their pro-democracy beliefs. His uncle had been hanged in public.

In 1998, his family home was fire-bombed and Ruzdhi's mother sent her son, then just 16, away.

He was smuggled into England in the back of a lorry with fellow asylum seekers.

A month after meeting Amy, Ruzdhi, now 20, moved into her flat and found a job on a building site.

The couple married in October, 2001, and weeks later Amy discovered she was expecting their baby.

But three months later came the bombshell.

Until then, the Home Office had renewed Ruzdhi's permission to stay in Britain every six months while his asylum application was considered. Now they were told their marriage was viewed as "precarious" and Ruzdhi would have to leave the country until a decision was made.

Amy, from Hove, said: "The idea he might be refused admission had always been there in the background, like a shadow over our relationship.

"We agonised over what to do. If he went back to Albania, he could be killed or never allowed back to England."

Eventually, when Amy was almost five months pregnant, the couple decided they would both go to Albania, where Ruzdhi would apply for a work visa with which to go to Britain as an ordinary immigrant.

Amy said: "It was dark when we landed in Albania. All of Ruzdhi's family were there to meet us and it was extremely emotional for him.

"Almost the first thing I noticed were armed soldiers wherever I looked. They were herding people through the airport and waving the guns around like toys.

"We were crammed into a minibus for the hour-long trip to his family's village. The house was very sparse. The only heat was from a tiny wood-burning stove in the basement which everybody huddled round. Half the buildings were derelict and there was no electricity.

"I was constantly terrified. As a pregnant Western woman I stood out like a sore thumb and Ruzdhi was still petrified somebody would arrest him.

"As the days passed I couldn't help but worry about what would happen if we ended up living in Albania.

"We had eaten nothing but gruel and I was washing in a tin bucket in front of the stove.

"I tried to imagine how it would feel to live like this forever and raise our baby here.

"The job and flat I had worked so hard to get would be replaced by days looking after the family cows and cold nights spent under scratchy blankets in a country where nobody spoke my language. I couldn't even contemplate it."

In January 2002, after six weeks in Albania, Amy returned to England before she got too heavily pregnant to fly. She left not knowing what would happen to Ruzdhi.

Amy said: "Saying goodbye to Ruzdhi and his family was the worst day of my life. He wasn't even allowed into the airport to see me off because we didn't have any money to bribe the guards.

"I was so scared I would never see him again or his application would be refused and I would have to go back to Albania for good."

Eventually, last February, Ruzdhi was granted a work and residential visa. He flew to Britain two days later.

Amy said: "I can't describe how I felt when I saw him walking through customs. It was almost like I hadn't seen him for years."

In May, Amy gave birth to their son Jon, and Ruzdhi's final papers, which give him lifelong rights as a British citizen, are due to come through this month.

Amy said: "I suppose part of me knew what I was letting myself in for when I married him.

"But you can't choose who you love, can you? I just wish it hadn't taken so long for other people to realise that."

l The full feature appears in this week's issue of Woman magazine.