Morrison Clan: Her name is Lola...

So there are a couple things I almost always hear when I say I have a blended family: "Oh the Brady Bunch" or "Yours, mine and ours!" Well first off, if I am the Brady bunch, then I want my Alice! Then when I say, well we only have three girls and two boys, then the response I usually get is, "You're young, plenty of time for a boy." My response to that is always, "Nope we're done!" Of course many are shocked by this a prod and little further with, "Don't you want yours, mine and ours?" I then reply with, "We have an ours, her name is Lola!" By the way, if you didn't know, Lola is our dog.

Lola crashed after a long hike while camping.

I get so many questions from people when I tell them "ours" is a dog. They say things like: "You're such a cute couple, don't you want to have one together?" or "You really don't want to have any more, you're so young?" The answer to both those question is simple: we can't and we don't want any more (oh and I'm not that young).

Yes, it is totally possible to have five kids and not want any more. It is also quite possible that when the two youngest kids are currently in fourth grade, I very well may NOT want to start all over. Also, it is very possible that when we started dating, one of the very first questions we asked each other was, "Do you want more children?" If only one of us had answered "yes" we would not have continued dating.

The thing is I knew I didn't want anymore kids when my youngest was born. My first husband really wanted a son, so it was tabled for discussion for at least five years. Six months after Haley turned five, Garrett got very sick and was hospitalized. More children was not a thought then. When he passed away, I sat down with some friends and made "the list." It's the list people make when they think about the future spouse. There are a couple of things that were "up for discussion" but one thing was set: I didn't want anymore kids! OK, so I ended up with three more kids, but I didn't want any more babies.

Ryan and I often joked about kids when we were dating. We were both people that didn't really want kids. Some how he had three and I had two. We talked about how funny it would be if we blended our families and the two people who wanted no kids ended up with five. We both knew that we had NO desire for a baby. It was wonderful.

Then shortly after we got engaged, we found out that I was going to have a hysterectomy. Granted is was considered elective, but the reality was there was nothing more the doctors could do for me. Pre-surgery, the doctor asked if we were really sure we were done having kids, because we were still in child bearing years. Emphatically we exclaimed "YES" and that we would be married later that year, combining our family with a totally of five kids. That was that and I was off to have my surgery. We later found that it was very necessary though there was no diagnostic way of knowing that in advance.

After my surgery I did grieve for quite some time. We were not even married yet and it was certain we would never have kids together. Though neither of us wanted more, I didn't like the idea of not being able to change my mind. Ryan sat with me as I cried at thinking that his ex-wife shared the joy of child birth with him and I never would. I cried to think that I would never know how cute our kids would be. I cried to think that before I turned thirty, I would loose being able to have children and wasn't that what made women...well women!

Time, friends and Ryan slowly helped me deal with this grief. I soon found that I loved living without pain that I had pre-surgery. I loved the freedom from mood swings and bloating. I loved all the varieties of freedoms I found post surgery. I soon learned being able to have kids did not define me as a woman.

But back to the issue of "ours." After we got married, we discovered how hard it was to blend our families. We have three different homes with some kids here on some days and not others and then other kids here all the time. We had to deal with the grief that came with the reality to all the kids that their homes would never be how they were.

So one family night after watching "Marley and me," Ryan and I sat in front of the computer and looked at dog rescues. We looked for that perfect addition to our home. Her name was Lola. She entered out home just a couple months after we got married. Some how our little gray girl united our family even more. She was something new to all of us. There were no expectation on her from how things "used to be." She came to our home and wiggled her way into our hearts and belonged to all of us at the same time.

Curled up on the futon with her "baby."

Our "love child"

To Ryan and I, she is affectionately called our "love child." She is the favorite sister to all the kids. We often come home, let her out of her "house" and sit on the floor as she runs around in circles giving us all kisses. She's probably not the "best" behaved dog, but we are all blinded by love. At Christmas, she got more gifts than any of the other kids. Any gift that was for the whole family was labeled "Lola" under the tree.

Always at my feet ;)

When you blend a family, though it was exciting for all of us, grief comes along as well. There is grief in the loss of "what was." Some kids had grief in the reality that mom and dad would never be together again and for others was another reminder that dad was really "gone." There were kids that had to share rooms and kids with different schedules. There was and still is a vast difference in likes and dislikes from games and TV to food and bed time rituals.

We stumbled through and found our way. We don't have it perfect, never will and that's not our goal. One thing we all share is our love for Lola. She brightens a "bad" day. Her antics make us smile. She is more than will to finish that last bite of food that some kids swears he or she cannot finish. She always licks ice cream bowls and loves to chase balls (even the one's of which you don't want her.) She loves to wake up kids by jumping on their bed and kissing them. We may not want babies and cannot have them, but we have a Lola!