I have 4 beautiful children, only with my 4th child did I have ICP.

After having an extremely stressful twin pregnancy (#2 and #3 not ICP), I begged my husband for another child for many reasons, one of which I craved for a normal singleton pregnancy. This was not going to be the case.

At around 28 weeks I found out my mum had terminal cancer, she was given 2 months to live. About 2 weeks after that I started itching on my hands and feet, my cousin had PUPPPS so I rang her and asked how she felt, I quickly realised this was not PUPPPS. A quick google and I knew it was (ICP) Cholestasis of Pregnancy, itching, pale stools and Upper right quadrant pain.

I rang my midwife, she came out to my home that morning took bloods and that afternoon she rang me and confirmed what we both thought was ICP (side note: in Australia, the test only takes hours to run in capital cities). She escalated my care to Maternal Fetal Medicine to which I was very familiar and knew many of my specialists already. I was prescribed Urso, the few days it took to become effective was very difficult, once the medication began working things improved. I had blood tests and CTG’s 3 times a week, I always knew when my levels had gone up as itching increased. By a few days after 37 weeks and a long wait for results and a specialist, my favourite specialist who delivered my twins came in to see me, she said it’s time to get this baby out, levels were 39.

So some mad running around as my husband and 3 children were with me, hubby made it back to begin induction which was challenging due to my previous c section. I had a Foley catheter which failed, then my water broken, after a very long 18 hours he was born (after the threat of a doctor to do a c section) he was a huge 4550 grams (10 pound 5oz), my placenta looked calcified and he had swallowed some meconium, he spent a few hours in special care, since that date he never looked back, and my mum did meet James we had 3 weeks with her before she passed. As strange as it is I thank ICP for needing early delivery without that my mum may have missed out on meeting her final grandchild.

I also admin 3 other Facebook groups, 2 to do with the complicated and rare twin pregnancy I had and 1 to do with Caravanning around Australia. I feel it is my duty to help and support others in their time of need, to provide them with evidence based care plans and support them to making a well informed decision about their care plan. Thank you for having me as an ICP Care team volunteer member.