I'm not the only one with innumerable questions. After spending the afternoon with friends and listening to yet more birth horror stories, S turned to me, palely, and asked, "So when people say that they were 3cm dilated, what bit exactly are they talking about?" I told him it was the cervix - the bit that effectively stops the baby from just falling out of the womb during the pregnancy. That struck me as a fairly basic bit of information so I started to worry - what else doesn't he know? Does he expect a special delivery via stork to just deposit the kid in our laps? A few quick questions established that he does know the basics: Birth will be grisly; babies shouldn't be left alone in the bath and it's probably not a good idea to let the cats sleep on it's face. Well that's something I guess.