How are babies born

Question
please a short answer is all she needs.  She is only 6 years old and is writing her own "book" for fun.  An honest answer is perfect!  Thank you.

Answer
Dear Samantha,

Wow, I've never been asked to do a "birds and bees" letter to a six year old before.  Let's see.  I hope I don't get too technical.  I'll do my best.  But this would be a lot easier in person!

A male and a female rabbit meet, and if they like each other, they become physically close to each other in a special type of "hug".  While the bunnies are hugging, the male rabbit is planting his "seeds" inside the female rabbit.  The female also has seeds inside her body that she has made just for this special occasion.  

The male rabbit's seeds look a little bit like tadpoles, or tiny fish.  They are called "sperm," and they can actually swim to reach the seeds of the female, deep inside her body.  The female rabbit seeds look like little, round balls, and they are quite a bit bigger than the male's seeds.  They are called "eggs."

When a sperm and an egg meet, they join together and become a special little ball called a "zygote."  This little zygote is alive.

The little, ball-shaped zygote will grow until it reaches a certain size, and then it will split into two identical balls.  The two new balls will stay stuck together, and they will continue to grow.  When they get big enough, each of the two new balls will split in two (now we have four!), and each of the four new balls will grow.  This will happen over and over until there are many, many little balls, all stuck together.  As they split in two and grew, they formed into the shape of a baby rabbit.

(You could try to imagine this by having a big pile of little, ball-shaped "zygotes" made out of Play-Doh, and sticking them together over and over until you made the shape of a bunny.)

This all happens inside the body of the female (mother) rabbit.  She usually has several babies inside her, all formed the same way, as I described above.

When the baby rabbits are big enough to live outside the mother's body, they leave through a special opening under her tail.  She leaves them in a fur-lined nest, and comes back to feed them milk.  The milk makes the babies grow and change, and about 8 weeks after the babies have left the mother's body, they are old enough to be on their own.

Yikes.  I hope that's clear.  But kids always surprise us with just how much they can understand!  Hope this helps.

Dana