A week-long honeymoon turned into a six-week ordeal for two Danish tourists when their son was born a month early leaving them stranded on the island.

The couple first had to wait for their newborn to be fit to fly and were then caught in a bureaucratic delay of paperwork that saw them go out of pocket to fund their unplanned ‘holiday’.

“We thought this would be a relaxing getaway for a few days, now we’ve been here for ages with no end in sight,” Martin Bjorgaard said.

It has taken weeks of driving around and hundreds of euros

Mr Bjorgaard had thought a week in Malta would be the perfect end to their fairytale wedding but when his heavily pregnant wife Maja started feeling sharp pains a few hours before their flight back to Denmark, he knew something was amiss.

“We were walking towards the terminal when I noticed my wife was in pain; she had to sit down. By the time we got to the terminal, the flight was gone and we didn’t know what to do,” Mr Bjorgaard said as he rummaged through a bag for a soft toy to occupy his newborn son.

The Bjorgaards made their way back to the information desk and were told that Ms Bjorgaard would need a new fit-for-flight certificate from a local doctor before being allowed to fly. The medical inspection, however, proved insufficient.

“We went to a private clinic but the doctor’s inspection was minimal. He told us we were fit to fly but once we got to the airport they wouldn’t sell us any tickets,” Maja Bjorgaard said.

Mr Bjorgaard said it was a good thing they were not allowed to fly as a different doctor later informed them travelling was now out of the question.

“The doctor told us not to fly because the baby, expected more than a month later, could come any day,” Ms Bjorgaard said.

A few days later baby Louis Bjorgaard was born at Mater Dei Hospital.

“This was definitely a shock to us. All the doctors we had spoken to had said there were no signs of an early birth,” Mr Bjorgaard said.

At four weeks premature, the baby’s lungs had just developed, any sooner and he could have faced serious complications, according to Dr Peter Cordina, a paediatrician specialising in premature births.

“You could say this was a lucky escape for the three of them, especially the baby,” Dr Cordina said.

The Bjorgaards, though happy for their healthy son, had no idea of the bureaucratic nightmare that would follow his birth.

“It has taken weeks of driving around and hundreds of euros,” Mr Bjorgaard said.

The Bjorgaards have spent the past four weeks trying to prove their identity, marriage and parenthood to the local authorities, buried beneath “a mountain of paperwork”.

“We had to liaise with the embassy and have documents translated and then flown down, this has been so needlessly complicated,” Mr Bjorgaard said.

Despite the complicated paperwork it would appear that an end is finally in sight for the Bjorgaards.

“An officially translated copy of our marriage certificate is on its way and should be here any day now, hopefully we’ll be able to fly home next week. This has definitely been a unique honeymoon,” Mrs Bjorgaard said.