I was diagnosed with Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy (ICP) at 22 weeks while pregnant with my twins. It started with intense itching on my hands and feet in the middle of the night. After sufficiently scaring myself with a google search, I contacted my OB, who responded the very next day. In her 13 years of experience, she had seen ICP twice before. She immediately put me on Ursodiol, which I had to stop taking after a few days in order to get an accurate reading from the bile acids and liver enzymes tests. My bile acids were a total of 48, and I was officially diagnosed with ICP. Over the course of the rest of my pregnancy, I steadily had to keep increasing the amount of Ursodiol I was taking while managing the intense itching at night. I was also prescribed NST checks twice per week + Ultrasounds once a week and a scheduled delivery at 36 weeks. As I became itchier throughout my pregnancy, I requested more bile acid tests. When my levels increased to 222, I contacted the Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor to ask to have my delivery date moved up. He agreed to move it to 34 weeks. The weeks leading up to that day were incredibly stressful and painful as I was very itchy at night and during the day and worried about my babies surviving. The day before my scheduled delivery, my water broke, and I delivered at 33 weeks + 6. After a few weeks in NICU, my twins came home, and I am relieved to say they are both happy and healthy today. I believe their survival and health is large in part due to the resources and information I learned from the ICP Care website.

I am excited to be joining the ICP Care team! My twins and I benefited greatly from the information found on ICP Care’s website, and I hope to help others diagnosed with ICP to find this important information.