Missing RAF man Corrie McKeague ‘due to become a father’, his girlfriend says

"I was hoping and praying that he'd come back so we could make the decision together."

She said that Mr McKeague, who she met on a dating site, had not known she was pregnant before he vanished.

She said: "I have the support of my family and friends around me which is great but it's still not the most pleasant thing to go through on your own especially when the person you love is missing.

"I've given it a great deal of thought. Obviously there is the element of 'what if he didn't come back?' what would I do and that was something I had to take a sensible approach to.

"When I found out, although it was a horrible time and something I wished I could experience with him, it was also something I was excited about.

"Given the stress that I've been under, the pregnancy has gone really well. I'm just doing anything I can not to add to the pressure I'm already under."

She said that she immediately realised that Corrie' disappearance was out of character.

She said: "I had only been there (in America for) a few days when I got the call from the RAF boys asking if I'd seen him or heard from him, that's when I knew that he was missing. I very quickly got a plane home.

"At that point I wasn't entirely sure what had happened to him. It was completely out of character.

"I found out I was pregnant a couple of weeks after I came back."

When I found out, although it was a horrible time and something I wished I could experience with him, it was also something I was excited about

April OliverGirlfriend of Corrie McKeague

A message was shared on the Find Corrie Facebook page this afternoon, saying: "It is with a mixture of emotions that we and Nicola Urquhart are now able to share this news.

"April has asked for her privacy to be respected as she does not wish any further media attention.

"We are supporting her in every way possible but respectfully ask that no comments are put on the page.

"Thank you so much for your support."

Miss Oliver, who is due in late spring, said: "There is nothing I would love more than for him to walk through the door and say 'I'm back'."

She said it had been a difficult decision to make her pregnancy public but that she wanted to focus on her baby without any intrusion.

Mr McKeague's mother, Nicola Urquhart, said she had to balance the joy of becoming a grandmother for the first time with the continued uncertainty about her son's whereabouts.

She said: "It's something that somebody would normally want to keep quiet to make sure everything's ok but it's getting to the stage now where there are far too many people starting to notice and ask questions.

"That's why we felt now is the time that we do have to let people know so that we can draw a line under it so April can enjoy her pregnancy safely without any additional stress.

"I was at the scan with April and I don't think anybody could see that and not be affected by it.

"But it's incredibly difficult to bounce my head from the excitement of a new baby to what we're actually trying to focus on which is finding Corrie."

The man's family has since hired "an elite team of specialists" to find the young serviceman as his disappearance stretches into months.

Police have found no trace of the 23-year-old since he was last spotted on CCTV in the early hours of September 24 after a night out in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

He was reported missing after he failed to turn up at his base in RAF Honington, and it was feared he could have tried to walk the ten miles back.

Since his disappearance, Suffolk Police has carried out "extensive" investigative work to find him, searching woodland, scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV and tracing dozens of people who may held clues.

In November police admitted they have "no leads" despite trawling through 1,100 hours of CCTV footage.

The family has vowed to never give up on their search.

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