We have a lot of pets. 

When I last checked we had two chickens, two dogs, three guinea pigs, three budgies, an unspecified number of goldfish, and four little girl gerbils.  It’s daughter’s dearest wish to have more pets, preferably baby ones, but our house is full and our garden small, so the line has been drawn.

And then two weeks ago, despite firm promises they were all female, one of the gerbils gave birth.  There, tucked into a nest of sawdust and cotton wool, were six pink blind wrigglers.  Daughter burst into tears of joy, and I shrieked an equally unrestrained: “What the bloody hell is that?!” at the squirming mass of infants.

Now I’m a level headed sort of person, but I have no idea what to do with baby gerbils.  Do they need special food? Heat? Bedding?  A call to the vet followed:

Vet: You need to separate the mother and babies and bring them to me for a check-up.

Me: I don’t know who the mother is.

Vet (with an audible sigh): Well who is in the nest suckling them?

Me: They’re all in the nest! It’s like the Christmas special of Call the Midwife in there!  I can’t see any suckling….. as such….Oh god, they aren’t EATING them are they?

Vet (more sighing): No that’s hamsters. Gerbils don’t eat their young.  Now lift up the adults and look at their teets.  The mother will very obviously have been feeding.

Holy Mother of Mercy.  I am an intelligent and educated woman. I have a law degree from Oxford University, and a long career in the city.  What evils did I perpetrate in a previous life that I am now to be found in a kitchen in South East London peering at gerbil mammaries……

Me: Ummmmm. Ok. I’ve found her.  I’m bringing them to you now.

Which was a lie.  I did not spend precious minutes of my life searching for furry nipples (those days are long gone).  Instead I took the whole cage with occupants down to the displeased vet, daughter in tow, mopping tears of pride and whispering comforts to the new parents. 

There followed a stream of small but painful humiliations as, despite my own pathetic failings in gerbil sex and parenthood knowledge, daughter was able to correctly identify Mother, Father and two Aunties, before pointing out the inevitable but no less appalling fact that both the Aunties were pregnant.  It was at this point that I passed out.

Veterinary advice was dispensed, none of which I heard, but I’m sure Miss Francis of Assisi was listening.  I saw her in my peripheral vision, nodding sagely, adding snippets of information of her own, with which the vet concurred.  I came to upon hearing the words: “if any of the babies fade you can try bottle feeding, but it is rather unreliable I’m afraid”.  Daughter looked up at me, big-eyed and hopeful.  I glared viciously at the vet.  I am many things, but a patient night feeder of blind bald rodents ain’t one of them. 

And now, two weeks later, the Aunties have delivered, and I am the panic-stricken owner of twenty one baby gerbils.  Yes, you read that right. TWENTY ONE.  Daughter is deliriously happy, and has just informed me that the vet told her a rather crucial bit of gerbil trivia that day: they reach sexual maturity at 12 weeks old.  It’s but a short space of time before I turn into a gerbil breeding factory, unless homes are found. 

Stop laughing and help me. HELP ME NOW.