Can't Get Enough of This Story

You of course have heard about Beccah Beushausen, the 26 year old single girl that faked a pregnancy on the internet?

Her blog, littleoneapril.blogspot.com documented her experience of being Christian, single, and pregnant with a terminally ill baby. She claimed the baby had Trisomy 13, a fatal birth defect, but being a strong Christian anti-abortion type, she was going to have the little girl, which she named April after the month she was due.

This chick really went all out. She posted sonograms; she described doctor visits in great detail; she went on and on about the emotional roller coaster she was enduring. She had pictures of herself taken with a pregnant belly by a creepy outfit that specializes in pictures of mothers about to give birth to terminal babies called Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep. The website was adorned with beautiful artwork---pastel colored flowers type stuff. A post office box was provided for those so inspired by this young girl's struggle to send gifts and donations.

Evidently there is a whole blogosphere of proudly Christian mothers that document every glass of spilled milk that their precious offspring knock over, posting pictures for the world to drool over. This is a subculture with its own language and acronyms like SAHM (stay at home mom). This was a deep well that a moderately talented scammer could pump for a long time without fearing it would run dry.

And this chick was a talented scammer---a beautiful writer and gifted artist. Her site was getting thousands of hits a day. But her story was becoming difficult to manage. The baby was supposedly due in April. April came and went, and the baby was not born yet. She had to up the ante.

So, in her miraculous story, her baby survived a difficult birth. Friends were posting about how she and the baby were doing. There were serious complications, but it was a miracle that the baby was alive at all. The updates contained detailed information about the minute to minute prognoses.

A picture of the newborn appeard on the site, and that's where the downfall began. Evidently there is a another subculture of realistic doll makers. They take existing dolls and change them, paint them, add hair, and create very realistic doll infants. They are known as "reborn dolls"---it's a Wikipedia entry if you don't believe me. Of course, one of the followers of this blog recognized the picture of little April as the exact doll that she herself makes.

So now this Becca chick has discovered that Hell has no fury like Christian Blogging SAHMs. Before she could delete the evidence they had unleashed a torrent of anger and vengance around the Bloggosphere. It was so much anger and hatred that it almost approached one-thousandth of what you see outside your average abortion clinic.

Beccah lay low for a week, then gave a self-serving interview with the Chicago Tribune (with a Glamour Shot style picture of her looking pensively to the side). She then posted an apology on her site to all her former fans ("i am sorry" all in lowercase for maximum apologitic effect) which only enflamed everyone more. The apology was originally invitation only, then made open to all with comments (suprisingly forgiving comments), then she got tired of deleting all the nasty ones and just turned off comments. She claimed that she could not bring herself to read about herself, although the apology evolved over time to respond to comments on other blogs that she evidently was poring over.

Of course the story here is not about anti-abortion views, or single pregnancy, or Christian love, or Cuo-cou-for-Cocoa-Puffs artsy chicks. It's just a funny story.