A suburban "mother-to-be" has infuriated the right-to-life community in America by admitting a blog she had written for more than two months tracking her pregnancy with a child diagnosed with a terminal disease was nothing more than a fantasy

However, in her determination to sustain the illusion, Ms Beushausen had posed for the photograph not with a baby, but a plastic doll.

One of the first to become suspicious of the events described on the site - littleoneapril.blogspot.com - was Elizabeth Russell, a dollmaker from upstate New York. "I have that exact doll in my house," she said. "As soon as I saw that picture, I knew it was a scam." She then started a counter-blog to expose the fabrication. For her trouble, she was bombarded with hate mail.