Naturopathy + Foster Care: One Respite Caregiver's Thoughts

Current late-night reads...

Since we last touched base, lots has been happening at the S+A abode.  As you know, we are no longer moving forward with the adoption of B+C, but that certainly hasn't stopped us from putting out the welcome mat!  In the past month, we've hosted six foster kiddos, ranging from 3 to 13 years old, and learned A TON about kids, ourselves, and why we're on this journey.

Because we are licensed through a therapeutic foster care agency, the children we care for are considered "clinical," that is, they have more advanced physical, emotional, or behavioral health complexities, and are therefore provided with more wraparound services to help them meet their needs.  We were trained for three months on what that could look like, but in all honesty, we weren't truly prepared for what we've seen, heard, and smelled these last few weeks (is anyone, ever?). Reflecting on each traumatic episode we've encountered has been an emotional dive back into my naturopathic education, my spiritual evolution, and my trauma-informed training, and the life lessons keep coming.  Let me illuminate.

I'll start with one particularly passionate three-year-old, who was obsessed with being right.  She'd pass the blame for accidentally peeing on herself and all over the bathroom floor ("Something is wrong with your toilet!") and would become so angry at herself and the world when it was nap time (because she is "not a baby anymore!"), that she would rage and start hitting herself, hard.  Obviously there are dozens of trauma-informed counseling techniques that come to mind to manage this behavior, and we certainly used a few, but my homeopathic brain immediately went to the remedy Nux vomica. Consider this passage from Desktop Guide to Keynotes and Confirmatory Symptoms by Roger Morrison, MD (page 273):

"The Nux Vomica child...is extremely competitive about his grades and sports.  He is a terrible loser.  The parents may say that the child can under no circumstances admit that he is at fault or that he has made a mistake."  

There were several other keynotes that matched this kiddo's picture, including a tremendous fear of the dark (she refused to fall sleep without two lights on) and also of humiliation, and I wished I would have had the clinical authority to administer the remedy to her.  [Note: Although Connecticut is a naturopathic licensed state, it is still unclear to DCF and our agency what the ethical implications are for "treating" children under my foster care license. Therefore, while it's technically legal for me to treat the child as a physician, I really don't want to put my "licensability" for foster care or naturopathic medicine at risk right now, so I am refraining.  Sigh.] Instead, we gave her a small tumbled tiger's eye to hold, in order to help energetically ground her while she raged, and also to address her solar plexus chakra, which I felt might be the cause of her insecurities.  It took some time and some breathing exercises, but eventually the stone (and everything else!) got the job done. 

Next, consider my most recent respite, one of the most confusing people I have ever met.  This particular thirteen-year-old had the shortest attention span I've ever seen, combined with a remarkably slow reaction time and cloudiness of mind.  I found out on day five of our time together that he is on the medication Lamictal, which is primarily used to manage bipolar disorder.  The contradictory picture made perfect sense to me then: sure, the medication dulls his senses in order to prevent the mania which comes from his diagnosis, but the tendency toward inattention and hyperactivity will always be his natural state, if left unaddressed.  I wonder: would he respond nicely to a protocol designed to both nourish his brain and calm it?  Is low-dose lithium orotate a viable option?  What might change with a healthy dose of omega-3 fatty acids (found in oils like fish or flax seed) each day? Could a high fat, low carb (aka ketogenic) diet be a cost-effective, non-invasive complement to his prescription medications?  What about Craniosacral Therapy or other bodywork? And the naturopathic gears keep turning...

The American Academy of Pediatrics fully acknowledges the ongoing trauma that living in foster care can cause, and most children enter into child welfare services with at least one pre-existing physical health condition in the first place.  With the state of our nation's healthcare system in the crosshairs of politics and business, the responsibility to care for our children lies directly on each practitioner, and I believe that licensed naturopathic physicians have a unique and valuable place on the healthcare team.  Nationwide licensure would help to ensure that healthcare consumers have access to a myriad of complementary therapies, and would hold all licensed physicians to a high standard of care.  Even better, it would allow for insurance coverage of naturopathic visits, granting access to this care to those at a socioeconomic disadvantage. Shouldn't state Medicare and Medicaid recipients (like kids in foster care) be given the option of high quality integrative medicine, too? #steppingoffthesoapboxnow #thanksforindulgingme

I wish I could say that all this rumination has led me to finally open a nonprofit naturopathic clinic here in CT, but between the confusion of our adoption disruption and my own health challenges, it seems that my master plan is stuck somewhere between the dreamtime and reality.  So, A and I are waiting patiently, helping the foster system on a day-to-day, one (or two!)-kid(s)-at-a-time basis. We're figuring out who we are as parents, as partners, and as people...and if slow and steady does indeed win the race, I can't wait to see what's at the finish line ahead.

xoxo,
S+A

When Adoption Disrupts, or "Why It's Been Awhile"

I suppose the best place to start would be where we last left our blog: the disclosure meeting.  The disclosure meeting was a pivotal moment in our journey, because it was officially included us in the adoption discussion, and we couldn't have been more excited!  Our disclosure meeting happened on March 8th, in a small conference room in a neighboring city's DCF office.  We met with a myriad of social workers and their supervisors, and spent an hour and a half hashing out potential transition plans, family histories, and current schedules, and finally, we set the date for our first meeting.

We met B and C on March 18th, immediately after reviewing the latest CPR guidelines and pumping life into rubber mannequins.  We had exactly three hours to spend with them in our agency's family meeting room and they were, well, intense.  The boys were excited to have a special play date, and I think the unbridled and unstructured play time was a bit overwhelming for them.  Three-year-old C managed to put away two pieces of cheese pizza, twelve chicken nuggets, ten "straw-babies," and a clementine--and promptly vomited when he at last came up for air.  (Note: must pay better attention to portion control for toddlers.  Yikes.)  Four-year-old B was much more disciplined with his dining, but was having difficulty acclimating to his newfound freedom, and spent the final hour of our day hurling (with extreme accuracy and surprising force, I might add) stuffed animals, throw pillows, and toys at my wife.  The day left us exhausted and confused, but still hopeful for the next meeting.

A few days later, their social worker brought B and C to our home, and we spent a few hours birdwatching through our huge living room windows, playing with "cars and guys," and munching on a much more modest after school snack.  The boys were friendly and affectionate, with impeccable manners to boot!  We wrapped up the day with a tour of their bedroom, and they were super stoked to know that the room included a Mega Bloks train and fire truck.

The following week, we learned that their foster mother requested a week of respite, and the social worker team agreed that this would be an ideal time to see how the boys would respond to living in our home.  They were happily dropped off at our house on March 29th, and A and I were ecstatic to be playing and dining as a family for the first time.  Bedtime proved a bit of a challenge, but still nothing unexpected, and we high-fived each other as we finally turned out the lights at 11 pm that night.

Unfortunately, that first day proved to be the calm before the storm, and we began seeing behaviors from the boys that were beyond typical toddler/preschooler tantrums--clear signs of former trauma.  Without getting too detailed, I will say that what we were reporting to the social workers throughout the week had never been seen with these kiddos, and that in itself was a huge cause for concern.

Although A and I are licensed as therapeutic foster parents (meaning that we have received additional training to be able to parent children deemed "clinical"), in the end, it was decided that we are not the right match for these beautiful boys.  This development was logical of course, but still devastating.  Over the past week, A (who is concurrently battling the cold of her life) and I have shed tears, felt lost, turned to prayer, become angry, argued with each other, fallen asleep at 6:30 pm, binge-watched Netflix, sculpted with Play Doh in silence, taken epsom-and-baking soda baths, meditated, exercised, spent 4 hours and $400 filing taxes, skipped meals, read adoption blogs, and met with our therapists, and I still can't say that we're feeling all that much better.  We're riding our own waves of trauma and loss, and each Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle we find lodged between couch cushions or tiny sock in the laundry basket feels like a stab in the heart.

We're grateful for several things, however, and the most important one is that the boys never knew that we were intending to be their adoptive mothers.  To them, we were just another set of babysitters ready to take them for a week of respite.  The team wanted to gauge how the week with us went before broaching the subject of permanency with the kids, and we are certainly glad that they were so mindful.  The boys left our home on a good note, singing nursery rhymes and laughing on their way to school, and I'm happy that that's how they'll remember us.  Although I don't know what's next for their case, I'm sure our agency is hard at work to match them with their forever home, and getting them the services that they very clearly need.  I have no doubts that these boys will go on to live happy, fulfilling lives.

We're also grateful for you, our friends and family, who have sent us private messages of support, asking how things are going.  We're sorry that we've been slow to respond and somewhat evasive with our answers, but we really are so happy that we're not alone in this.  Please know that we, too, are looking forward to spending time together once the dust settles!

So, what's next for us?  We've taken a bit of time to work that out for ourselves.  In our discernment, we have considered just doing respite care for a while, putting a (permanent?) pause on parenthood, and even relocating once more to start fresh.  But in the end, we're committed to our journey, and we're ready to be a pre-adoptive home.  With the blessing of our agency, we're returning to DCF for case management and placement, where we'll have the best chance at being matched successfully.  In the meantime, we're still respite foster parents.  Two school-aged kiddos will be staying with us during their Spring Break this week, and we're planning to take full advantage of the Yale Peabody Museum membership we received at our shower (thanks, IKEA Stoughton!) while they're here.

Thanks again for coming along with us on this bumpy ride.  We're sure there's more happiness ahead, and can't wait to share it with you.
S + A

P.S. We just found out that C was matched and B is #1 on the waiting list for our top school selection.  Thanks for the luck and well wishes!  I am hopeful that they can still attend next year, they deserve the best.