By Marcus Errico

It's official: Britney Spears has a baby on board.


Following weeks of tabloid speculation and repeated denials by Camp Spears, the "Toxic" singer came clean in a posting on her Website Tuesday, announcing she and husband Kevin Federline are on stork watch.

"The time has finally come to share our wonderful news that we are expecting our first child together," Spears writes.

The long-expected announcement comes the same day Star magazine ran with a cover story breathlessly proclaiming "Baby Crisis! Britney Rushed to the Hospital!" Per the report, Spears was rushed to the emergency room of Sacred Heart Hospital in West Destin, Florida, on Friday, accompanied by Federline and a bodyguard. Star says the "crying, pale" Spears' jeans were "stained with blood" but that she did not miscarry.

Citing unnamed sources, the magazine reports Spears, 23, was transferred to the larger Fort Walton Beach Medical Center's maternity ward, where she was treated for premature separation of the placenta from her uterus. She reportedly was well enough to check out of the hospital on Sunday.

Neither hospital would comment on Spears' condition, but the singer briefly addressed Star's story in her Web message Tuesday.

"There are reports that I was in the hospital this weekend, Kevin and I just want everyone to know that all is well," she says. "Thank you for your thoughts and prayers."

The gossip mill has been churning out Britney-is-preggers stories for the better part of two months, with Us Weekly, Life & Style, Star and E! Online's own Awful Truth chronicling her burgeoning belly and attempts to curb her Marlboro-and-Red Bull habit, as well as a rumored rift with Federline.

Last month, the "Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman" purveyor blasted the publications as "false tabloids" staffed by "liars," but did not specifically address the pregnancy reports. The magazines all stood by their stories.

Spears is on the record saying she wanted to start working on her own family as far back as 2003. In an interview with Newsweek, the then-21 former Mouseketeer, fresh off her breakup with Justin Timberlake, said she was hoping to be married and have kids within five years. But, after tying the knot with Federline last September, she ramped up the timetable.

"I am going to be focusing on three main areas of my life for the immediate future. Myself, my husband, Kevin, and starting a family," she wrote in a November post on her Website.

Of late, Spears has been playing stepmom to Federline's two children from his previous relationship with actress Shar Jackson. Federline, 27, left a pregnant Jackson in 2004 for Spears.

Spears and Federline hooked up just eight months after her first marriage, to childhood friend Jason Allen Alexander, was annulled within 55 hours.

Spears did not announce a due date Tuesday, but reports have pegged her at four months along. No word on how the pregnancy will affect her recording plans--she had been working on an album, tentatively titled The Original Doll, for release later this year.

In the meantime, Spears and Federline will be working on their other new baby: a UPN reality show. The six-episode series, which will use footage shot by the couple of their courtship, marriage and honeymoon, debuts with a special one-hour episode on May 17.