From Homeschooling to Healing: The Passion And Purpose Of Melissa Dean

In this episode of Mom to MORE™, host Sharon Macey is joined by Melissa Dean, homeschooling mom, midwife and founder of  Casa Natal Birth and Wellness Center, in Los Gatos, CA.

As a functional and integrative medicine practitioner, Melissa combines her expertise in women's health with her midwife practice. She provides care with an emphasis on holistic health modalities to bring wellness to women in every stage of their health journey,  including childbirth, transition to motherhood and beyond.

Melissa’s expertise has been featured in leading publications such as The Bump, Today’s Parent, and The CheckUp. She has been a featured guest on leading podcasts such as Dear Doula, The Hypnobirthing Podcast, and The Go Deeper Podcast by Floka. And now she can add Mom To MORE! 

Melissa serves as an inspiration to other moms through her journey of personal and professional reinvention. As a stay-at-home mom who chose to homeschool her 4 children, Melissa exemplifies dedication to family while also showing that motherhood can be a springboard for personal growth. Her decision to incorporate a part-time career as a doula into her family life, and later become a certified midwife, is a powerful example of how balancing family life and a personal calling is not only possible but incredibly rewarding, as it benefits women in her local community and beyond..

Melissa’s journey proves that it’s never too late to follow a passion, and that motherhood can be an incredible foundation for achieving professional success and making a lasting and meaningful impact on others.

[00:00] Introduction
[01:30] About Melissa Dean and her background
[02:59] Melissa's Family and Homeschooling Journey
[04:32] Homeschooling approach and benefits
[08:12] Practical education and teaching life skills
[10:52] Transition from homeschool to high school and college
[11:53] Skills learned from being a stay-at-home-homeschooling mom
[16:27] Melissa's path to becoming a midwife
[19:26] Founding Casa Natal Birth and Wellness Center
[21:00] Comprehensive care provided at Casa Natal
[23:37] The importance of supporting mothers postpartum
[24:43] Involvement of Melissa’s family in Casa Natal
[26:23] Melissa's MORE
[28:16] Where to Find Melissa Online

Learn more about Melissa:

Website: https://casa-natal.com/

Instagram: @casanatalbirthcenter

Looking for MORE? Follow @momtomore on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.  @Sharon Macey on LinkedIn.

Keep an eye out for episode #23 of the Mom to MORE™ podcast where Sharon is joined by women’s health expert Erica Libby Humbert - Coming soon - you won’t want to miss it ♥

• Episode Transcript

  Sharon:
  Welcome to the podcast where motherhood meets reinvention. I'm your host, Sharon Macy, and this is Mom2More. I'll be speaking with remarkable moms who have embraced the art of transformation. crafting their more by leveraging the skills they hone as stay-at-home moms. They'll share their experiences, struggles, and successes as they return to a former career, pursued a passion or hobby, or charted an entirely new path, giving you the clarity, motivation, and inspiration to help you answer the question, what do you want to do when your kids grow up? Welcome back. Well, today we have a really fascinating guest and I'm going to tell you all about her. Melissa Dean is a mom, midwife, and founder of the Casa Natal Birth and Wellness Center located in Los Gatos, California. As a functional and integrative medicine practitioner, Melissa combines her expertise in women's health with her midwife practice. She provides care with an emphasis on holistic health modalities to bring wellness to women in every stage of their health. including childbirth, transition to motherhood, and beyond. Melissa's expertise has been featured in leading publications such as The Bump, Today's Parent, The Checkup. She has been a featured guest on leading podcasts such as Dear Doola, the Hypnobirthing podcast, very interesting, and the Go Deeper podcast by Flocka. And now she can add mom to more. So welcome, Melissa. I'm so thrilled you're with me.

  Melissa: Thanks so much. I'm so excited to be here. I think it's such a fascinating topic. Thank you for choosing me as a guest.

  Sharon: Well, first, we have to give a big shout out to the Mom 2.0 Summit, which is where we met this past April. And I just loved learning about your wonderful next chapter in your life. And I am really excited to share it with our listeners. I also think that maternal health is such a critical issue for women, especially what's happening now in our country. And we will dive into how you got to where you are. But first I always ask my essential mom question, and that is how many kids do you have and where did you raise them?

  Melissa: I have four children and also one stepson who I was so blessed with, with my marriage. We live in California. I raised all my kids here. My kids range in age currently from 25 to 34. So there's a nine year gap in between my oldest and my youngest.

  Sharon: Gotcha. And why was it important for you to be home with your kids and now?

  Melissa: Well, I mean, my mom was home with us and she always said, you know, if you're going to work, work when they're little, because when they're in high school, it's the most important time for you to be home and really watching out for their well-being and making sure that we stayed in line. My mom wanted me home, so to make sure we stayed in line. So I knew that that was important for me as well. Plus, I just couldn't see sending my babies to daycare. It was very difficult to think about that. So yeah, I chose to stay home and I wanted to be the person who instilled the morals and values and all my kids' well-being into them myself, not having somebody else do that.

  Sharon: Understood. And I also realized, because I had that privilege, that it really is a privilege to have that choice. Big shout out to the women who do not have that choice because they are doing double duty.

  Melissa: I 100% agree. It's super hard to be a stay-at-home mom because, you know, you're on all the time. But at the same time, it's so rewarding. And I know so many women would love to be able to do that, but just can't. And I absolutely respect that as well.

  Sharon: Absolutely. So you were really home with your kids in all aspects of life because you chose to homeschool them. And I find homeschooling fascinating. I know that since the pandemic, It has grown exponentially and it has stayed there, which is really interesting. And I was doing a little research on homeschooling and I'm kind of blown away by these statistics. Roughly six to seven percent of school age kids are homeschooled and it is now the fastest growing form of education in the United States.

  Melissa: Yeah. My oldest is 34 and I did put her in school for two years, so kindergarten and first grade. Honestly, like I didn't start out as this homeschooling advocate. Oh, I have to homeschool. So when my daughter was little, we lived in a neighborhood where a lot of the kids spoke Spanish. Our neighborhood school was an ESL school and she could almost read by the time she was in kindergarten. So I chose to send her to a private school so she would get a little more focused education just because I thought she would be bored in the other school. And that became just not sustainable after I had another child and putting two kids in private school, we just couldn't afford it. And so many of my friends were homeschooling at the time. And I figured, you know, it's first grade. How hard could it be? Second grade. I mean, I I know I can do this. So my plan was always to do it one year at a time, just see how it goes, see how I like it, see how the kids are doing. And year and year and year went by and she went off to college and never, ever went to school.

  Sharon: How did you manage to homeschool your kids plus manage a household? So you're sort of there all the time with the kids, your teacher, your mom, your house manager.

  Melissa: Well, I mean, obviously you need to be organized. And, you know, I grew up in a house where we had chores every day. And so in my house, my kids had chores. So, uh, we would start the day by, you gotta get your, you know, get your math lesson done. Let's do your spelling and reading. And then we always had chores. So you have to do your chores. And honestly, they went to school in their school at the private school. They went to school for eight hours, even in kindergarten. long day. It was a long day. But it was so I mean, obviously, four hours of school is not a it's not a lot for a kindergartner, but it's probably enough. But it was a lot of, you know, social and things like that. And they got a little bit more personalized attention at that school. But when we were finished with school in two hours, they were like, that's it. That's all we have to do. And I said, You've done all your lessons, let's do something fun. So then we started thinking of fun things to do. And You know, we had a great time. I mean, I was talking to my son about it the other day, how much fun we had when they were kids. We also could take vacations when nobody else could go because we didn't have the school year to limit us. And we also would plan something educational on our vacations. So, for example, we went to Glacier National Park. We had been studying locks at the time, you know, shipping locks. And there's locks all along the Columbia River. So we stopped and watched the boats go through the locks after learning about what a lock is and why they use them. So that was our science. And we had been talking about the different trees in the forest. So we learned about those. And then we also had been studying the Oregon Trail for history. And the Lewis and Clark Museum is right there on the Columbia River. So we stopped and saw that. It made the trip interesting and fun and also made it so we were schooling while we were on vacation. So every day was a school day.

  Sharon: Which is fantastic. It seems like a very pragmatic education, right? Something you can take and you then move into life. And it's interesting, you said the Lewis and Clark Trail, one of my favorite books is called Undaunted Courage, and it is about the Lewis and Clark expedition. I just read it years ago and it remains one of my favorite books.

  Melissa: Yeah, it's amazing. And there's so many really interesting Lewis and Clark stops all along their trails.

  Sharon: Absolutely. And so did you teach everything or did you outsource any of it?

  Melissa: In the beginning, I was the only teacher. Obviously, elementary school is not that hard. But when they got to junior high age, I can spell and teach reading and history and all the things, but math is not my strong suit. So I started outsourcing their math classes. I'm also just a super social person. So when my daughter got to be in junior high age, she was probably before, she was probably like in fifth grade. my friends, like I said, were homeschooling. And so we decided we wanted to form a co-op school because we all wanted to socialize. And so we had history and science only. And all the moms in the group would take turns teaching, like I taught history, someone else taught science for different age levels. So we had a group of, say, three grades in one class, and we would teach those three grades one history subject for the term. And then another teacher would teach them the science subject for that term. And then that grew and grew and grew to include math and, you know, reading and spelling and literature and art and all kinds of other things. So, yeah, we formed a co-op school. We also had a really big support group in our area. A lot of our, like I said, a lot of my friends were homeschooling. We had season tickets to a local children's theater. We had season tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So we could always do, you know, we could finish our book work and then we could go to the aquarium for a couple hours and enjoy the aquarium while still learning more about the animals. We could go to the plays with a bunch of our friends, enjoy some, you know, nice plays and culture and then go have lunch with everybody. And my kids thought it was super fun and it made it very enjoyable. We weren't just home all day, every day.

  Sharon: Right. Which is nice. And I think there are certain kids who having that activity built into the day is good for your brain. And I do know that after all these years, that if you exercise before you have to study, it's really beneficial and it helps everything sink in more. So just the act of being out and about and learning while you're doing, what a terrific combination.

  Melissa: Yeah, it made it super fun. When they got to high school level, so many more of our neighbors and things were homeschooling. My kids chemistry teacher was our local pharmacist. He clearly knew his chemistry and they got a very rich education and my boys all decided to play sports. sports that you had to go to school for. So my daughter never went to school. She started going to college when she was 15 and graduated high school just a couple of weeks after turning 17 and then went to college when she was 17. And my boys all chose to go to high school so that they could play their chosen sport. So they did go to high school. My oldest son started in 10th grade, went to high school for three years, and the younger boys went in ninth grade.

  Sharon: Got it. So a very wide and diverse educational background for your kids. I think that's fascinating. So let's talk a little about the skills you learned while you were home with your kids, while you were educating your kids. What were they and how did they help you transition into Casa Natal?

  Melissa: Well, like I said, first and foremost, we had to be organized. I mean, for sure, we had plenty of pajama days where we all just hung out in our pajamas and did our lessons. And there were many days, again, where my kids didn't necessarily want to do their math lesson or they didn't necessarily want to study that or do that big project that we had to get done. So obviously, you learn some people management skills when you are motivating your children to do something that they don't necessarily want to do and being organized. You know, and I also learned that I had to make lists of things so that I could get all the laundry done, get the meal planning done, get the shopping done and prepping the food. But I was also teaching my kids how to do those things. So, you know, my kids can all clean a bathroom to my expectations. My son was mentioning that the other day about how he hated cleaning the bathroom, but at the same time, he is so appreciative now of being able to take care of his own house. Absolutely. You don't necessarily have to expect that his wife does all that. So they split up the house and she does half and he does half.

  Sharon: And good man. I am proud. Yeah, you have to know how to do that. It's you know, at some point, everyone's going to live on their own. And we all know what happens if toilets aren't clean. So yeah.

  Melissa: And I wanted them all to know how to cook. So we did meal planning. And I had them organize, what do you want to make today? Let's make it. So that they would learn how to cook, the fundamentals of making themselves meals. Because all my kids, when they went off to school, needed to be able to fend for themselves. I wasn't going to necessarily provide a giant meal plan for them or bring them food all the time. So yeah, all my kids knew how to cook. and cook things that they liked and how to budget so that they could afford the things that they wanted. We had one project one year where my daughter really wanted to buy an American Girl doll. So we decided that it was before Thanksgiving, we were going to sell apple pie and pumpkin pie to raise money for her to buy her American Girl doll. So she went around to some of our local friends' offices, and she was probably 12, and sold a bunch of pies for Thanksgiving, and then I had them figure out how much money they were gonna make, how much does it cost to buy the ingredients, and then we made apple and pumpkin pies for an entire day, and she delivered them all and made enough money to buy her American Girl doll. And they thought that was so great, they wanted to do it every single Thanksgiving. So we did it for several Thanksgivings in a row, making quite a few apple and pumpkin pies so that they could afford to buy things that they wanted.

  Sharon: But what a valuable life lesson. If you want it, you need to earn it.

  Melissa: Exactly right.

  Sharon: Yep. and getting creative and they learned how to bake pies to achieve their goal. I think that's brilliant.

  Melissa: Yeah, I didn't necessarily give my kids allowance. I didn't necessarily just hear some free money. If you want something, let's figure out how to earn the money to buy it. And again, still, they're really great as adults at budgeting and figuring out how they can afford the life things that they need.

  Sharon: Right. And that's that is a skill that will take you from now to forever. Mom 2 More podcast is sponsored by Ally Shoes, created by a trio of trailblazing women. These shoes are engineered to alleviate pain. Finally, right? They cradle your foot with an ergonomic cushy insole design. and come in every chic, classic, and live out loud color you can imagine. Whether it's the three-inch classic heels, the super posh flats, or the fab, chunky heel ankle booties, they're all timeless, modern, and elegant. And I'm sharing the love with all of you. Head on over to ally.nyc, where new customers and listeners of the pod will get $40 off your first pair of classic heels with special code MOMTOMORE40. Going casual, get 10% off your first pair of boots and flats with special code MOM2MORE10. Moms, meet your ally in fashion who are reimagining how comfort and function support women every day. So let's talk a little more about you. You went back to school and you started as a doula and then became a midwife. So why this choice? Why this pathway? Why did it resonate with you?

  Melissa: I got married young. I had my kids when I was younger. A lot of my friends didn't have kids so that when they started having kids, they're like, well, you have kids come with me to the hospital as support. And so I did go with a few friends to the hospital and then I met somebody who was a doula. And I was like, oh, I can actually get paid to do that because this is a pretty amazing job. Supporting a woman through birth is just super amazing. So, yeah, when my youngest was two, I went to school to be a doula. And I really wanted a job that I could work super part time or add more hours when I had more free time, like in the summer or whatever, when I had more time to be working. I didn't have to go out of my home every day. I would just go when there was actually somebody having a baby. And it worked really well for our family schedule. I made, you know, a nice little part time income. And over the years grew my practice to where I was actually making a pretty decent income and loved it. But the idea of going back to the hospital over and over again after I would see things that happened in the hospital, I decided I didn't necessarily want to spend as much time in the hospital because all my clients wanted natural births with little or no interventions. And I learned that it was more and more difficult to have a natural birth with no interventions in the hospital. that in order to be really truly having a natural birth without being kind of on somebody else's schedule or somebody else's agenda, you need to stay out of the hospital. And so I went back to school when my youngest was in seventh grade, eighth grade, something like that, to be a midwife.

  Sharon: It feels to me as much of a calling as a passion, almost like being a doctor, right? It's a calling.

  Melissa: Yes, a hundred percent. It is for sure a calling because the hours are crazy. You can't be a midwife if you don't love it because it is the hours are crazy and there's a lot of responsibility and it can be quite a stressful job. So you have to love it.

  Sharon: And I will point out that at this very moment we're recording this, there is somebody who's in early labor and you might be getting a text at some point soon.

  Melissa: Yes, yes.

  Sharon: I'm on call today. You're on call today. There you go. You know, I will share that our third, our youngest, she was coming so fast that by the time I got to the hospital, she was a totally natural birth, no medication. And I'm like, boy, I actually kind of felt like I got hit by a truck.

  Melissa: Yeah. It does feel like that if you're not expecting it. Yeah. If that's your plan, it's a magical and wonderful experience. And even if it's not your plan, sometimes it's still a magical and wonderful experience. But yeah, it's different. It's all about your mindset. You know, really, really, really is about your mindset. Pain is all about what's in your head. I can say for sure that if you were not expecting it, it would it would feel that way.

  Sharon: So how did these skills and how did your passions translate into Kasanatal?

  Melissa: When I was a student midwife, I trained at a couple of different birth centers and I really loved the birth center model. You know, I grew up also in a smaller town where, you know, if you had your baby at home, it was looked at kind of weird, like, oh, those weird hippies are having their baby at home. That sounds kind of crazy. So I knew that having a birthing center was kind of the happy medium between a hospital birth and a home birth. because you aren't held to all the hospital regulations. You're using a midwife, you're out of the hospital, and it's pretty much the way you want it to be, but it's not at your house. It just come to my house. So I started the birthing center to provide that space for families who really did want a natural experience with no interventions, but weren't quite ready for the home birth experience.

  Sharon: But then also, if you do come across a problem that you can't handle, then they are taken to the hospital.

  Melissa: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty rare that we have transfers. It does happen, but Yeah, we have the hospital nearby. We go in long before it becomes an emergency, because obviously in birth, it's a natural experience. Your body knows what to do. And there are little signs along the way that something's not quite right. And so we choose to go in before it becomes the emergency transfer. It's just this isn't looking exactly the way that it should. We're going to go ahead and go to the hospital now. We'll stay with you there. And just in case it turns into the emergency situation, we're already there.

  Sharon: Terrific. That makes a lot of sense. So in reading a little more about Kasanatal, you have a really interesting staff. You have a chiropractor, you have a nutritionist, you have a lactation specialist. You also have prenatal yoga classes and postpartum classes covering what is called the fourth trimester, which to me is so essential because oftentimes from the hospital, they're like, okay, you're done, see you. And you're like, what am I doing? How am I supposed to take care of myself? Let alone take care of my child. And as a woman who's had three kids, a lot goes on in your body within the first few weeks after you have a baby.

  Melissa: Yeah, so much focus is on the woman until the baby comes out. The minute the baby's out, the shift goes to the baby and the woman becomes something that's just completely almost ignored. And you have your night or maybe two nights in the hospital where you have a nurse attending to your baby and kind of helping you learn the ropes. But then they send you home and they don't see you again for six weeks. And you're trying to figure out breastfeeding and you're trying to, you know, am I bleeding too much? You know, is all this normal? How come I feel this way? Why do I feel emotional? all the things. And so the midwifery model of care really does follow the woman very, very closely. Our clients have their baby, and then we are at their house. The day after their baby is born, we come to their home. We support them through learning breastfeeding. We support them through all their questions about their newborn, reassuring them, helping them lean into their mother's intuition, which is really what we are trying to help support because obviously, you know, we want you having your own intuition. We want you cuing into your baby's cues and understanding what's normal for you and your baby. We come to their home again on day three, and then we see them again at one week or two weeks, kind of depending on the mom and following up with phones, phone calls, text messages, you know, emails, all the things they have us available 24 seven if they have emergencies or concerns to reach out and ask questions. It's super important to have that kind of support.

  Sharon: You know, in retrospect, right? I wish I had it. I nursed all three of my kids. And even though nursing seems so natural, it is not natural.

  Melissa: And in the beginning you're like, what the heck? Yeah.

  Sharon: 100%, and for something that is so natural, it is weirdly difficult and weirdly unnatural until you get the hang of it. Then it becomes easy peasy.

  Melissa: But then- Well, and the thing is, you've never done it before, nor has your baby. So both of you are trying to figure it out. I mean, obviously I had kids before we had computers, let alone internet. So we didn't have TikTok videos and Instagram and all this stuff to learn from. We had a book and I had my mom.

  Sharon: to help me support me and what to expect when you're expecting book.

  Melissa: And the what to expect when you're expecting book, which to me only incites anxiety a lot of the time. But yeah, so it was reading books and things like that. So, yeah, I think nowadays moms have a lot more information, but even then that can be sometimes overwhelming because you're getting too much information. And, oh, do I need this? Do I need this? They're selling Instagram keeps giving me these messages that I have to buy this one thing. And a lot of it you don't really need. But some of it is pretty great little instructional videos.

  Sharon: Yeah. I mean, I do love your model and being there for the mother and the child, and that is just invaluable. What do your kids think about this next chapter of your life? Are any of them engaged in your business?

  Melissa: So the dietician on my website is my daughter-in-law and she herself just had her second baby and I have been blessed. I have three grandchildren now. I've been blessed to be invited to each of my grandchildren's birth and participate in their births. I'm super blessed that my daughter-in-laws want me around and ask my advice because not all mother-in-laws are blessed that way. Yeah, I think You know, I have been a birth worker pretty much my kids whole lives, so they don't really know much other than me being a birth worker and being on call for other women. I think they like that I now have a group practice and have a little more time to, you know, come and be with them. Again, I traveled across the country to be at my granddaughter's birth a couple weeks ago and was able to spend a few weeks supporting my son and daughter-in-law and their family, helping them in the days and couple weeks after the baby was born. So that was that's just really wonderful. So I can only imagine that they think it's good. My daughter is an acupuncturist, and, you know, again, more holistic health. And she just lives far enough away that she doesn't practice at the birth center. But I keep trying to entice her to come down and practice her acupuncture at the birth center. And two of my daughter in laws are nurses. So we're all kind of in health care. And

  Sharon: Fascinating. I love your story, Melissa. It's so unique and I love what you have created with Casa Natal and just the support that you give women on a daily basis, emotional, physical, mental. It's beautiful. So thank you for doing the good that you're doing in your local community. Our time is coming to a close and I have one question that I ask all of my moms, and that is, since this is the Mom2More podcast, Melissa Dean, what is your more?

  Melissa: Currently, my more is, as you mentioned in my bio, I went back to school again and became a functional medicine practitioner. So over the years, treating women through their pregnancies, doing their labs and their basic pregnancies, learning that a lot of women have more and more autoimmune issues and health complications that they struggle with and don't necessarily know where to find the answers. So I went back to school to become a functional medicine practitioner so that I could continue to support those same clients or new clients through their postpartum years into closer to menopause, helping support them with holistic health, healing, getting to the root cause of their autoimmune issues and, you know, anxiety, depression, all those kinds of things. So that's my more. I'm definitely focusing a lot on functional medicine these days. You know, I still love going to births and supporting women at birth, but I have a group practice now so that I am not the only midwife delivering all the babies at the birth center. I can spend time focusing on continuing in women's health after they've had their babies. When you have a midwife, you create this really wonderful bond. And I've become really great friends with quite a lot of my clients. And the idea that I can continue to see them throughout the rest of their life cycle with health issues is just magical to me. I just love that I get to continue to care for them because they're very special to me.

  Sharon: And what a wonderful advocate you are for women and women's health. So I applaud you for that. Thank you. So please tell my listeners where they can find you online.

  Melissa: So my website is casa, C-A-S-A dash Natal, N-A-T-A-L dot com. If you go to our website, we actually have five pregnancy nutrition tips. click on that. Happy to send you a free nutrition tips for your pregnancy. And we are on Instagram at Casanatal Birth Center. I do functional medicine for women all across the country. So you don't necessarily have to live in Northern California to, to utilize my functional medicine practice. That's good to know. Yeah. So look, check us out.

  Sharon: Yeah, and I'll remind all my listeners that all of this information will be in the show notes and you will be able to reach out to Melissa. Melissa, this has been so enlightening and delightful. And I just want to thank you for your time today.

  Melissa: Thank you, Sharon. It's been really lovely visiting with you.

  Sharon: Before I sign off, a quick favor. I would love it if you would take a few moments to follow or subscribe to the pod. Following us means you'll never miss an episode, and it really does help the show to grow. Just go to the Mom2More Show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen in, tap the plus sign in the upper right corner, or click on Follow. While you're there, if you'd be willing to leave a five-star rating and review and share an episode with another mom, I'd be so grateful and appreciate your support.

  Sharon: Thanks for listening in, and see you next time.