In 2021, I went to my 35-week appointment thinking I had 7ish weeks left to meet my daughter and left with an induction date for a week later and a diagnosis for a disease I had never heard of before. I had been dealing with an itch so intense my body was covered in bruises and a rash. I wasn’t sleeping. I was lethargic and nauseous all the time. While it was nice to have answers, my provider provided me little information and I dove into a terrifying rabbit hole. Without the ICP Care group, I would have had no support or centralized information hub. 

My birth ended up being extremely traumatic, and the glaring cracks in our healthcare system for mothers and baby’s led me to birth work. I became a certified birth and postpartum doula and certified birth instructor while seeking advanced certifications in VBAC, Spinning Babies, and the Body Ready Method. 

Through learning more about Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP) at this time, we were able to determine the cause for my stillbirth nearly a decade before was probably due to undiagnosed ICP 

Exactly two years later, in 2023 I was 30 weeks pregnant with my second daughter planning a home birth after caesarean when I felt that familiar itching. In the coming weeks my levels nearly quadrupled into the 100s. Through the ICP Care group I was able to get the empowerment and I needed to push to have a repeat C-section at 36 weeks which ultimately saved my daughter’s life due to meconium aspiration that we caught in time. 

I am so proud to be doing the work of spreading awareness for ICP and helping save the lives of babies.