FRANKLIN, Tenn. -- A woman said she was pregnant with a terminally ill baby. Her story touched thousands, including a Franklin couple who helped raise money for her medical expenses.

The only problem was that the woman's "miracle baby" turned out to be a doll.

Beccah Beushausen would sometimes get 100,000 readers a day at her Internet blog about carrying a terminally ill baby. The story of April Rose became an Internet sensation. Beushausen posted pregnancy pictures, ultrasounds and heartbreaking updates.

It was a story Franklin's Ryan and Raechel Myers couldn't ignore. They had met her in college years ago and shared an even more intimate bond: The Myerses had lost a daughter last year, who was stillborn with a genetic disorder.

"i'm very emotionally attached to this and birth and life, and so when this person that I knew contacted me ... about such a close subject to my heart, of course," said Raechel Myers.

Raechel Myers became a champion for Bushausen. She and her husband made T-shirts, raised money and updated the country when Beushausen supposedly went into a hospital to have April Rose.

The problem was that the whole thing was a hoax.

The video Beushausen posted of her newborn, critically ill baby on the Internet was actually of a doll. Owners of expensive Reborn Dolls uncovered the hoax.

"We're heartbroken, but we're not the only ones, and we're seeing that more and more as the days [are] progressing," said Raechel Myers.

Beushausen told the Chicago Tribune that it was all a hoax, that she had become addicted to the attention and love of her readers. She said she knows it was wrong and has since erased April Rose from her blog.