Leah Howd is concerned that her 5-month-old son, Johan, will not remember his father when they finally meet.
“He is too young to understand that the person on the computer monitor is his father,” he said.
Howd, 39, from Peoria, Illinois, has not seen his partner, Bas Bruurs, 41, from the Netherlands in three months: they are among thousands of couples now separated in different corners of the world by restrictions from COVID-19 trip.
The United States has banned most foreign travelers from Europe since March, while the European Union banned Americans from visiting its 27 member states on July 1.
The NBC News Social Newsgathering team spoke to Americans desperate to meet with their partners who use social media hashtags like #LoveIsEssential and #LoveIsNotTourism to highlight their stories.
Howd and Bruurs, who met while playing the online video game Guild Wars 2 in 2015, have been dating since 2017 and had their first child in February.
“We were really excited and happy when I got pregnant,” Howd said. “We spent most of the pregnancy separated. I was in the United States and he was in the Netherlands, but we always planned to move to the Netherlands.”
Before the pandemic, the couple was filing documentation for Howd’s visa. But because she was due to give birth two weeks after the scheduled in-person appointment with the Dutch Immigration Office, the couple decided to postpone the meeting.
Bruurs was able to travel to Illinois for childbirth, but returned to the Netherlands in mid-April after her tourist visa expired. You have not seen your partner or your child since then.
“Bas and I have been used to being apart,” Howd said. “We never intended to part with a child. Suddenly, I’m learning how difficult it is for single mothers, because I don’t have my partner to help.”
Howd lives with his mother, who has helped take care of Johan while she works from home full time for a university library.
Bruurs said: “When I left him, he was sleeping or eating mainly. Now he has smiles and a personality. I hope he doesn’t cry because now I’m a stranger.”
The separation stories have drawn the attention of government officials, including EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, who has encouraged EU member states to broaden their definition of a partner to include singles.
“The partner or ‘girlfriend’ with whom the citizen or legal resident of the Union has a duly certified long-term relationship must be exempt from EU travel restrictions on non-essential travel,” Johansson wrote on Twitter on July 2.
Denmark has allowed “love affairs” meetings, allowing foreign partners, children and parents to enter the country after they sign affidavits and provide evidence that they have been negative for COVID-19.
Hilary Kost, 50, who lives in the Florida Keys, met her partner, Holger Merz, 53, from Tieringen, Germany, in 1977. Kost, whose mother is German, said she used to spend summers and Christmas in Germany visiting his family. .
After years of meeting in the small German town, the two struck up a romantic relationship.
“He was my first boyfriend. I was his first girlfriend,” said Kost. “I never stopped thinking of him as my first love.”
However, as he grew older, Kost said that he spent less and less time in Germany and that the two separated. Finally, each married other people and lost contact.
Kost said that after divorcing, he searched for Merz on Facebook. They reconnected and have been together ever since.
The couple was last in Florida in May. Kost said leaving Merz at the airport was one of the most difficult things he had to do.
“It was the hardest goodbye I’ve ever had with him, because I literally thought, ‘Is this the last time I’ll see him?'” Kost said, adding that she was concerned about Merz’s flight during the pandemic, as he you have asthma and type 1 diabetes.
“It has been terribly painful,” said Kost. “After meeting him 2 and a half years ago, being apart since we were young and thinking about each other all these years and finally being able to connect through social media … it’s almost like the old days, separated by years war. “
A German member of the European Parliament, Moritz Körner, and other politicians sent a letter this month to the country’s interior minister, expressing support for allowing single couples to meet in Germany.
“Corona should not limit love,” Körner wrote on Twitter on July 8. “Together with @KonstantinKuhle, I call on Home Secretary Horst #Seehofer to make exemptions for bi-national couples. #LoveIsNotTourism #LoveIsEssential #DoItLikeDenmark.”
Alexandra Boles, 23, of Tempe, Arizona, last saw her fiancé, Nicolas Caron, 23, of Toulouse, France, on January 3 while visiting her and her family for Christmas. The couple, who met while studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, planned to see each other again in April, but then the pandemic ensued.
The couple, who have been engaged for nearly a year, decided they would apply for the K-1 visa, colloquially nicknamed the fiancé visa, so that Caron could join her in the United States. The first part of her application was approved on March 17, but has since been stopped because K-1 visas are not considered “mission critical,” Boles said.
“I haven’t seen him in the last six months, so I’ve spent half my engagement alone,” he said.
The State Department suspended routine visa services at all U.S. embassies and consulates on March 20 due to the pandemic, except for critical personnel such as air and sea crew members and medical professionals.
Boles said they hope to settle in Maryland, where she will start law school at the University of Maryland in the fall. Caron was supposed to help with the cross-country move, but now she’ll probably have to do it alone.
“I feel like my life is on hold,” he said. “We were hoping to get married in 2020. I doubt that will happen. I already have the white dress.”
Boles is concerned about how long the pandemic-related restrictions will last and wonders what it means for her relationship with Caron.
“As someone with a foreign fiance … we are not calling for the tourism ban to be lifted,” Boles said tearfully. “We are not asking for open borders. We are not asking the administration to simply open the site with the EU, like willy-nilly. We are asking to be allowed to see our foreign partners in our own country.” “
