Diane Blood, the widow who fought a two-year court battle for the right to have her late husband's child, is pregnant for a second time using his sperm.
Mrs Blood, from Worksop, Nottinghamshire, is expecting her second baby in July after treatment at the same Brussels clinic where she conceived her son Liam, now three.
She and her husband, Stephen, were trying to start a family when he fell ill with meningitis in March 1995, aged 30. As he lay dying, she persuaded doctors to take and freeze a sample of his sperm.
She fought a determined battle against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, which refused permission for the sperm to be used because Stephen Blood had not given written consent. In February 1997 the appeal court ruled that she could take the sperm abroad for treatment under EU law, but closed the loophole for other women in her position.
Liam was born in December 1998, three and a half years after his father's death. Since then, she has refused to say whether she was trying for another child, while acknowledging that it was "medically possible".
She announced her pregnancy yesterday because she could no longer "hide my growing bump". Liam, who was told only this week that he was going to have a new brother or sister, announced that "he wants a brother and a sister", she said.
She added: "I'm particularly pleased that Liam is to have a sibling. I'm an only child but Stephen had two sisters he thought the world of and he would have been delighted that Liam is to be raised with a full brother or sister, and that he is to be a father again."
She said she did not know the sex of her unborn child and did not want to know yet. Asked whether she would be having any more children, she said: "I severely doubt it. I fought in the court case to get the rest of my life back, and to make decisions as I go along, and not have to end my life at a point in time. But I'm 35 now and I doubt it."
Mrs Blood said her only sadness was that the new baby would not be officially recognised as Stephen's child or as Liam's full sibling, because the law did not allow a dead father to be named on the birth certificate. "The new child's birth certificate, like Liam's, must show the father as 'unknown', which of course couldn't be further from the truth."
A private member's bill to change the law was talked out last year, and the government has not kept its promise of August 2000 to introduce retrospective legislation.
Mrs Blood is now gearing up for a new court battle under the Human Rights Act unless the law is changed. "My solicitors have written to the government giving a three-week deadline before possible litigation. I hope the government will respond indicating plans to push through the legislation immediately.
"I don't find it acceptable that my son's birth certificate is a lie. I find it even more ridiculous that the full relationship between my two children will be denied by their birth certificates."
Last month, a mother from Coventry whose daughter was born in similar circumstances managed to get her late husband's name on the birth certificate.
The case of Donna Ceairns proved the present rules were increasingly being confused by registrars, said Mrs Blood.
Mrs Ceairns, 27, lost her husband Colin to cancer two years before baby Billie was born, but he is listed on the birth certificate, with his occupation as "warehouseman, deceased".
Mrs Blood said: "She has managed to persuade a registrar to register her late husband as the child's father, but this birth certificate was not completed in accordance with the law. Many mothers have failed to obtain birth certificates which reflect the biological truth of their children's birth."
