AN: should warn this is a strong T rated chapter for use of language and themes. This is the 'how babies are made' chapter.

PJ

"Ready?"

"I guess."

Cal almost laughed; it was an automatic anxious response, not a mocking of her reluctance. Gillian narrowed her mouth at his grin though. "I'm nervous," Cal admitted.

"Really?" Gillian gave him wide disbelieving eyes.

"I've not done this before," Cal reminded her.

"Yeah but..."
Zoe had done the 'talk' with Emily. Alone. Cal and Gillian had already agreed that they were going to do it together. Gillian had found a child-orientated information book, with cartoons of naked men and women and sperm and ova and babies. Gillian also insisted they should sit Lewis down and talk about men, women, sperm, ova and babies, seeing as they had already started explaining how she was pregnant, but more importantly he was that age, and really, they probably should have started this whole thing just a little bit sooner. However, now that moment was here, she realised she had given no thought as to how to begin the conversation. "I'm not sure I'm ready," she confessed.

"Well I don't think there's eva gonna be a good time to have this convasation," Cal took her hand and started to lead her upstairs. "But you're already showin' and soon you're gonna really pop and Lewis is gonna ask more intense questions once he realises exactly what havin' a baby means so it's betta that we go to him first right? Somethin' about shown' him it's not somethin' we're tryin' to hide because it's shameful, right?"

Gillian nodded. Right. There was that. Good ploy Cal, to make her aware that she was doing the right thing by her child, no matter how tough it was. They had talked about this, about how their parents had done it and how they didn't want the information about sex and how babies were made to come out. It shouldn't be awkward considering it was so something so natural.

"Right?" Cal turned his head back to face her, as they headed down the hall on the first floor, when she didn't verbally respond

"Right," Gillian agreed, watching as his shoulder bumped into the wall and the force pushed him out again so he stumbled a little.

Gillian was nervous and so was Cal but he really would do anything to make her life easier if he could and so once they were in Lewis's room he called the boy to come over and sit on his bed with his Mum and Dad. Cal read the book to him, leaning against the wall, cover to cover, while Gillian sat beside them and watched. And yeah, maybe sitting the four-year-old down like that with both of them there was placing significance on the moment he finally got the full account of how the baby had got into his mother's belly, but that didn't really matter because the information was significant.

Cal closed the cover and gave the book to his son to hold and turned to him expectantly, "What do you think?" He placed his index finger against his forehead, slightly off centre.

"That's a funny story." He used his index finger and middle finger and brushed them down from his nose twice.

Cal chuckled slightly. "Yeah it is kinda funny. But it's a real story." He used 'serious' and 'story'; eight hands moving towards each other in a fluid motion and repeating it three times.

"Real life?" Lewis looked up at him, blue eyes sincere.

"Yep," Cal confirmed. "That's how babies are made." He rocked his arms like he was holding an infant.

"That's how I was made?" Lewis pointed to himself.

"Uh yeah," Cal agreed. Sort of. IVF was definitely a conversation for another day. Master the basics first. "And that's how the baby in Mum's tummy got into Mum's tummy."

"Babies live in a woo Dad," Lewis quickly corrected.

"Yep, her womb," Cal agreed. "You're right. Not her tummy." He pointed to his stomach and shook his head.

Lewis shook his head in agreement. "What's the sign for woo Dad?" 'Sign' was index Ferris wheels.

"Womb," Cal corrected. He had come prepared. "There isn't a sign. So we spell it," and he did so and when he added the 'B' at the end Lewis looked mightily confused. Cal explained it was silent, as in, don't pronounce the 'B', but it did belong there when the letters were written down or spelt out. Lewis nodded he understood. Cal suspected he wouldn't remember that though. Spelling was tough for words and concepts that didn't get used every day or were complex. 'Toy' was an easy one; short and used all the time. Names were usually abbreviated for simplicity. Lewis knew how to spell quite a few names and he understood his letters but as for writing them on a page...

They sat silently for a moment while Lewis thought or composed himself. Cal glanced over at Gillian. She had been so quiet he was pretty sure Lewis had even forgotten she was in the room. "You have any questions Lewis?" Cal prompted, making a question mark in the air.

"Did the sperm go in Mum and that's how the baby was made?" Lewis rocked his arms like he was holding a baby.

"Yes," Cal confirmed.

"How did it get it in there?" 'How' was making two arches and flipping them from close by the body, upside down, away from the body.

"You tell me," Cal challenged lightly. "We just read about it. Do you rememba?" He brought his hand to his forehead as if he were cramming something into his skull.

"Boys have penis and girls have vagina," Lewis told him, as if he were proud of that fact. He could sign 'boy' and 'girl' but as for anatomy, it was often signed by pointing to the correct 'part'.

"Yep that's true, but how does the sperm get out of the man and into the woman?" Cal signed 'in' by tucking the fingers of his right hand into those of his left.

"Hum," Lewis mused.

"Have a look," Cal gestured to the book Lewis had in his lap. Lewis pulled the book open again and roughly flicked through the pages. Cal winced, hoping the paper wouldn't rip under the assault. Lewis flipped back to a page that was clearly interesting and stared at it for a while. "Did you find it?" Cal prompted him again. The sign for 'find' and 'pick up' was the same.

"How about this page?" Gillian suggested, leaning forward to gently turn the pages beneath Lewis's fingers until there was the information about sperm and ova in front of him.

"I don't know the words," he looked up at his mother. He brought his right hand in a 'G' shape against the index finger of his left hand while shaking his head.

"Would you like me to read them to you again?"

"Yes pease," Lewis agreed, shoving the book towards her a little more, rubbing his flat hand around his chest quickly.

Cal eased back against the wall again, so he wasn't twisted slightly towards his boy and listened to his wife reading the section about how when a sperm met an egg it fertilised to make an embryo, which would take nine months to grow into a baby. Why did they say nine months? It was really ten months. Forty weeks, four weeks roughly in a month...

"What do you think?" Gillian pressed. "Did that tell you why?" She used a 'wh' question gesture.

Lewis gave a slight frown but he did sit and think a while. "It comes out the Dad's penis," he supplied.

"Yeah," Gillian affirmed with a slight smile, a proud smile, that he was able to work it out.

"Does there sperm come out my penis?"

"No, not yet," Gillian told him gently. "You have to be grown up for that to happen." She used 'big'.

"How come?"

"You just do. It's just one of those things that happens when you're bigger."

"Like Dad?"

"Yes like Dad," Gillian smiled again, but this time, it was for Cal.

"Oh. And Ajay? He's a big person. How come Emily has no baby in her womb?"

Cal had an urge to break Ajay's leg for putting his sperm in his daughter, which is certainly not something he wanted to think about at all, ever, thanks a lot Lewis, and luckily for him, Gillian fielded the answer to that question. "Because you can choose to have a baby or not," she made a 'V' hand shape with her left hand but kept it flat and plucked an imaginary something off her index finger with her right hand. "You know Aunt Kate and Uncle Matthew? They had babies and now they don't have any more."

"Oh so the sperm only comes out when you want?"

"Yes," Gillian tried and then hesitated. Her eyes met Cal's and he knew she was floundering again. He didn't really blame her. From what he'd heard she'd received the most awkward talk about the birds and bees. In fact, birds and bees had actually been mentioned. How much was too much information? How much was not enough?

"Sperm comes out when a man has sex," Cal leaned forward again to re-engage in the explanation. Why the hell not just tell him the lot of it and be done? He was going to find out eventually and if he had the questions, as Cal had always maintained, then Cal would answer them. Even if they were complicated.

"With a woman?" Lewis asked. He used 'female' and 'fine', which was the accepted concept for woman.

"Not always with a woman. Sometimes men have sex with men," Cal pointed out. 'Man' was a squashed 'C' hand shape by the forehead, then brought down to the chest.

"Then how do they have a baby?"

"They can't. Can you tell me why?"

"Um," Lewis looked at the book again, as if it would whisper the answer to him.

"What do you need to make a baby?" Cal encouraged. "What two things?"
"A sperm and a egg."

"Yes!" Cal agreed impressed. "And if the sperm comes from the man then where does the egg come from?"

"The woman."

"Yeah so, two men can't have babies can they?"

Lewis shook his head. Cal expected another question about 'but how does the sperm get out' and was preparing himself for a really, really awkward explanation but Lewis sat there for a moment, tracing his finger along the picture of the sperm on the page and was quiet. Cal wondered if he should wait for the boy to process, or prompt him again.

"Does it come out in your pee pee?" Lewis turned his head to his father. He almost looked concerned as he made a 'P' hand shape and pressed the index finger against his nose twice.

"No not then. Not when you go to the toilet." Cal made a 'T' hand and shook it back and forth.

"You have to have a man and a woman to have a baby," Lewis mused.

"Right," Cal agreed. He waited again because it seemed like Lewis was on the edge of something and Cal didn't want to interrupt. It was important for Lewis to understand in his own way.

"And the man has to put his penis inside the woman to make the sperm come out?"

"Yeah," Cal agreed. They could have a conversation about all the other ways to make sperm come out later.

"Oh. Is there a button to push?" He shoved outwards with his right hand, his left held on to the book.

Cal smiled before he could help it, and tried not to laugh. Tried very, very hard. "No," he spoke, his voice wavering a little. Lewis glanced up at him and he immediately sobered. "There is no button," he shook his head. "Do we have buttons on our bodies?" He made an 'F' hand and brought it down his chest in arcs, like he was pointing to each button.

"You have a belly button," Lewis noted.

"That's a very good point. But it's not really a button is it? It's a nickname."

"Oh." He looked back to the book.

The nice, tame, children's 'how babies are made' book did not touch on sex. There was one for puberty but Gillian said she hadn't been able to find one for the dirty mechanics of actual sex. That information was going to have to come straight from them. The book Lewis had in his hand picked up from after the sex had been had. "Sperm comes out of a man's penis when he's havin' sex," Cal spoke up. "What happens durin' sex is, with a man or a woman, blood rushes into the penis and makes it very sensitive to touch. And when he puts his penis inside the woman it feels really, really, really, really, really great. For the man and the woman."

Lewis looked up at him again, the book not as interesting as an explanation like that. The boy's eyebrows flickered a little as if they were saying 'go on'.

"And then afta a while, it gets really excitin' for the man and he has an orgasm and the sperm travels out of his testicles and comes out his penis, which is inside the woman."

Lewis's expression changed to 'that sounds hideous' or 'are you kidding me!'

Cal raised his eyebrows, not sure what to say next, inviting Lewis to comment.

"And then the woman has an awesome and a egg comes out?" Lewis eventually asked.

"An orgasm," Cal corrected. "And with women it's different," he told Lewis gently, crossing his index fingers then drawing them apart. It was the sign for 'but' as well. "The egg comes out of a woman's ovaries every month and it travels down a tube to wait in her womb in case some sperm comes in."

"Oh," Lewis turned back to his book with a frown on his face. Cal glanced over at Gillian who was studying the bed spread. This was really her domain. "Then were does it go?"

"If there's no sperm then the egg comes out of the woman's body," Gillian picked up the narrative.

"It just falls out?"

"Yeah," Gillian spoke up.

"Do you know it falls out?" Lewis looked over at her. He indicated the book a little by shifting his grasp on it. "Cos it's so small you can't see it with your eyes," he added as if this were new and wise information he was imparting on to her.

"Yes I know," Gillian told him and Cal was glad because it would have been so easy to lie and with every new revelation of truth came more questions and more to explain. "See in the book," she took it and turned the pages again to the start where it explained about the womb, how there was a lining for the embryo to attach to and get lots of nutrients so it could grow, before the baby had a stomach.

"Then where does it go if it falls out?"

"Away in to the toilet."

"Like a poo?" Lewis giggled. He grabbed his right thumb with his left hand and pulled it down and out again.

"Sure," Gillian agreed, suppressing a laugh of her own. "Sort of like a poo, but remember it's so small..."

"You can't see... Then how you know?"

"All of this comes out too," Gillian indicated the picture, with the thick endometrial lining.

"Oh you see that?"

"Yes."

More silence.

Cal wondered if they had covered all the bases yet. He'd talked to Lewis about girl parts and boy parts before, why Mum looked different to Dad. And how they were also private parts that no one else was allowed to touch, especially if Lewis said 'no', and he was most certainly allowed to say 'no' if he didn't like it. He'd told Lewis about how his body would change as he grew up and became a man but he hadn't really gone in to the girl's side of things, nor specifics; but then he didn't have to, Lewis looked at his body and he looked at Cal's body and he could see. There didn't seem to have been a need and it was something more easily explained when the kid was actually going through puberty and they went over it all over again.

"But don't women not have trestles?"

"Testes. No women don't," Gillian answered, shaking her head. "We have ovaries, which are like women testicles, but inside our bodies."

"Where?" Lewis asked quickly.

"Down here," Gillian pointed to either side of her pelvis, under the slight swell of her pregnant belly. "But inside. You can't see them." She reached for the book and showed him in the picture again.

"That's inside you?"

"Yes."

"Oh. But so small you can't see?"

"Well you can see the ovaries but you can't see the eggs inside them."

"Are they like chicken eggs?" He made a beak with his index finger and thumb and snapped it close.

"No," Gillian chuckled a little. "You know how big a chicken egg is." She made two 'H' hands, brought the right edge of her middle finger down on top of the edge of the left index finger, then moved them both down and away.

"Human eggs are different," Cal added.

"They look like this," Gillian pushed the book upright and pointed again, to the picture.

"Different," Lewis mused, crossing his index fingers, then drawing them away again.

Now that was covered, it was time to have a conversation about what was and what wasn't appropriate to talk about in public.