THE CARY HOUSE

460 Franklin St, Buffalo, NY

Our Story

Rebecca and Pauline came together initially as two solo parents navigating the unpredictable, spontaneous work of supporting birth. It started with watching one another’s child when the other was called in and organically grew into a team effort of dedicated back up and tagging each other out of the labors that went on for days. This created sustainability and an inevitable family network where both of their kids had safe, familiar places to be as their mom’s fielded the Tetris schedule of on call work and grew up loving (and fighting) like siblings.

In late spring of 2018, Rebecca wrote for the Ignite Buffalo Grant on the floor of a bathroom in labor & delivery while attending a very long and winding birth. The family were in and out of sleep and she kept vigil while putting into words why this work is important and how the grant would amplify her ability to do it. Out of over 800 applicants, her proposal made the final cut. Based on the foundational work she was doing at Village, a collaborative space that integrated birthwork alongside her massage and yoga practices, she had discovered new avenues that were effective for and supportive of both hospital and home birthers. From there it was a whirlwind of next rounds/ deeply honed proposals that demanded more tech savvy than she had, it was here where the real magic began to unfold. Pauline’s analytical, detail oriented skills got to work and it became apparent that a merger of these two energies & approaches was something very special. Together, they crystalized the vision and secured the grant.

As a team, they are very much the embodiment of the Yin/Yang; the Taoist philosophy of balance and harmony between two opposing but complimentary forces that are interconnected in a constant state of dynamic flow and transformation. Over time, as their own lives shift and change and children grow, so has the vision and practice; expanding further into the space of menopause, education and mentorship. Working as a team means being able to support not just the families in this community but expanding the team to encompass other practitioners in a centralized space where the overlooked, undervalued non medical aspects of care around the hormonal transitions of fertility, pregnancy, childbirth and menopause coexist.

The grant became the tiny seed that has grown into what is now lovingly known as The Cary House. Located in the Historic district of Buffalo, NY, The Cary House is an 1869 Italinate building named for George Cary, a prominent architect of the Pan-Am Exposition. The two spent what felt like an eternity looking at spaces -none of which felt right- until this particular building literally called them in and, riding this invitational wave, laid the foundation for what CH is today. They rented for a year, lovingly pulling up old carpet and stripping layers of wallpaper, refinishing buried original wood floors, metaphorically peeling years of history back and breathing new life into the cozy, sun drenced home of their collective vision. One year later as they were set to take the leap into ownership, COVID shut down the banks and offices the week of closing. The intensity of maneuvering as the world shut down around them demanded big pivots and even bigger faith in what they were cultivating. Birth never stops and the rooms of Cary House became labor spaces for families to work until birth was imminent or shifted out of the medical model altogether.. The support that happened during COVID was a testament to the power of community and a return to the organic process that is so often dismissed in clinical settings. With their kids doing school in the house meeting room, childbirth education and yoga classes happening in the zoom room, clients working through labor in treatment rooms, it was truly a movement back to the “Village” of us.

Our philosophy centers the value, magic and raw power of pregnancy and birth through engagement in the process itself. We focus on the non medical avenues of support and help families find their way to confidence, understanding and ownership of their experience no matter what it looks like. Through education, bodywork, labor / post partum support and community, we know this experience can be SO very different from the status quo. Our culture has normalized highly managed care around a natural, physiological process. We see through the tracking of our client outcomes that what we are doing works. We know that living pregnancy from foundations that normalize birth and the changes that happen as we grow our babies and bring them into the world helps to embody practices and awareness. We know that having the tools to implement during labor helps families to connect and do the work together, leading to more positive outcomes and experiences.

We work from a combined two decades of sitting with labor in all of the different environments, with all of the different providers, witnessing the myriad ways a labor can unfold. Labor is unique to each individual - there is so much nuance, while we cannot predict the labor you will have, or the way you will respond to it, what we can do is provide tools in order to do the work of it while understanding the system you are navigating. Knowing what is happening during the process whether it is the unfolding of a spontaneous labor, an induction or a scheduled C Section makes all of the difference. What we have found is that it is not necessarily the outcome that determines a positive, empowering experience. It is how you FEEL while you are doing the work of it, the support and comprehension and trust in your own body and its capabilities, that inform the experience. It is our wish that everyone comes through their birth experience with full ownership of their choices, having felt informed and aware throughout. Birth is something we DO, not something that happens to us, understanding this to be able to participate in your process is the difference between empowerment and trauma.