"Soon I was getting 100,000 hits a week, and it just got out of hand. I didn't know how to stop. . . . One lie led to another."
Although Beushausen said she used her real-life experiences as a basis for her fictionalized account, her devoted fans didn't read it that way.
"I feel emotionally exploited," said Jennifer McKinney, a Minnesota mother who runs the widely read Christian parenting blog mycharmingkids.net and nearly lost her fourth child during pregnancy. She said Beus- hausen sought her out to help promote her site and, in retrospect, had seemed more interested in attracting viewers than in her unborn child.
"I have 11,000 Twitter followers, and I drove most of the traffic to her blog," McKinney said. "My readers were praying for her, and I feel guilty about that. But I have to admit her stuff was beautifully written."
Raechel Myers, a friend of Beushausen's from college, heard from someone this year that Beushausen was going through a difficult pregnancy. Myers and her husband had a daughter who died at birth, so they did more than most to support Beushausen.
"When I heard that she was pregnant, I called her and said if she needed anything, I was there for her," said Myers, who lives in Nashville.
Myers sold T-shirts online to benefit both her friend and an antiabortion pregnancy clinic that Beushausen sought support for.
The couple said they sent her a few hundred dollars. Even after learning of the hoax, Myers said, she and her husband did not regret their involvement.
"She's someone who needed love and attention, and we gave her that," Myers said.
Beushausen said she planned to write one final blog post, coming clean and apologizing to her fans.
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kjanssen@tribune.com
