The kid count cringe

Yesterday I ran into a woman I can't say I know, but I recognize. In the dark afternoons of post-nap winter, her husband and I ran in the same library circle, bringing our kids to the children's reading room at the same time every Friday. I'd met his wife a couple times around town -- at the park, at the parents center -- and her son would recognize Ben and I'd say something awkward like "I know your kids from the library" and she'd say "Oh yeah, my husband's been taking them there a lot" and then we wouldn't have much more to say. I ran into her yesterday in the school gym after the children's performer had wowed our little ones with his juggling, balancing, and unicycling antics, and noticed she was pregnant. We chatted, as usual, quite briefly.

"I didn't know you were pregnant," I said. (how would I have known? I don't know her, nor do we have any common friends that I know of)

"Yeah, we'll be outnumbered soon," she replied, smiling and tossing a look at her two children, who were indistinguishable in a sea of small heads. "When are you due?" she asked.

"End of July."

"Oh, you're lucky, so soon. I've got until September." 

"Good luck," I said, sashaying to the right to pull Ben from step one of the entertainer's small ladder. 

A boring conversation on the surface, but one that made me think about how I react to other people's pregnancies, especially when it is the third, or more. Essentially, I try to be positive, but fear I end up sounding fake, over-compensating in my enthusiasm for actually meeting someone who dares to overstep the standard family parameters. [Just because I live more rurally than the women on UrbanBaby.com, doesn't mean I'm surrounded by the farm-family mentality -- it's uncommon for my fellow mothers here to have more than two children, and very rare for them to have a kid count of four plus]. 

I usually sense that there's some reluctance to reveal a third plus pregnancy in my peer-set -- the news comes out very late, it arrives with a disclaimer "not exactly planned but..." "we aren't sure what we were thinking but..." "you might think we've lost our minds but..." I sensed this reluctance in the woman in the school gym, even though I can't put my finger on why. Am I projecting? Hard to say. I just know there's a glossed-over shame that comes with admitting, as an educated, middle-class woman over 30, that you might want more than two kids. I'm not making it up. I feel it in myself and I feel it when I talk to other mothers, and I want to continue to chip away at the real reasons why it's somewhat socially unacceptable to think big, in public.