‘Expensive science experiment’: Journalist reveals controversial medical treatment that fixed her infertility
A Channel 9 identity Dominique Loudon and her husband – an NRL legend Martin Lang – have revealed the “expensive science experiment” behind their miracle baby.
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This is the moment Dominique Loudon had dreamt of.
It’s what kept her going through six years of infertility, failed IVF cycles, a miscarriage, heartbreak and painful twists and setbacks in a years-long rollercoaster of hope and loss.
It’s what carried her through more than 100 medical appointments, 230 needles and spending more than $70,000 on fertility treatments.
And it’s why she pinned all her hopes on an obscure treatment she initially dismissed as “an expensive science experiment” but ultimately proved to be a breakthrough in Loudon and her husband Martin Lang’s fertility journey.
It all led to this moment at 7.30am on March 14 this year at Pindara Private Hospital on the Gold Coast when Loudon, 39, Channel 9 sports reporter, and Lang, 49, a former NRL player and now neuroscientist, welcomed their baby girl, Josephine, into the world.
“It was a fairy tale, I’ve never felt anything like it,” smiles Loudon, holding the now four-month-old Josie.
“I had that full-on love … it just hit me like this big love bomb when she was put on my chest.
“You forget how hard it was and then you look at her and you think, I cannot believe that you are a result of all these years of trying and trying and now we have her, it does feel like a little miracle baby.
“I know that sounds really cliche but she does feel like a little miracle. She is so loved,
and we’re so grateful we have her. We feel really lucky.”
At their Burleigh Heads home on the Gold Coast, Loudon cradles baby Josie while Lang gently dotes on his daughter.
It’s a familiar picture of parents adjusting to life with a newborn. But behind this seemingly ordinary scene is the extraordinary journey to bring Josie into the world.
Their story starts in 2014 when the pair met at a Gold Coast Titans training session at Kurrawa Beach. Loudon, who grew up at Mudgeeraba, was there reporting for Channel 9 and Lang, who retired from playing NRL in 2004, was working as the Titans’ strength and conditioning coach.
The next day, Lang sent Loudon a Facebook message and, as they say, the rest is history.
Lang already had three children from a previous marriage (now aged between 19 and 22), and starting a family wasn’t something Loudon assumed would be part of their future.
But the more they got to know each other and fell in love, the more they both wanted a baby together.
They married in 2018 and a year later turned to IVF under the care of Monash IVF medical director Dr Kee Ong on the Gold Coast and decided to freeze embryos.
“I was 33 at the time and was just starting to hear the tick of my biological clock,” says Loudon. “At the time I was still incredibly career driven and didn’t feel quite ready to become a mother.
“In hindsight, I wish we had transferred an embryo straight away considering the subsequent setbacks we had.”
What began as a hopeful pursuit soon grew to be all-consuming, taking over every part of their lives. “The very first round of IVF we did, it was the Gold Coast Titans season launch and we had to do the trigger injection,” says Loudon of the crucial first step in the IVF process.
“It had to be refrigerated so Martin met me there and came up with the trigger injection in a cooler bag and we did the injection in the toilets between live crosses. That was pretty full on.”
Over the heartbreaking years of infertility Loudon endured three failed IVF cycles and a miscarriage in 2022 when she was six weeks’ pregnant.
Loudon describes the loss as one of the most harrowing experiences she’s ever had to face.
“I was doing an interview for work at the Carrara Sports and Leisure Centre and I could feel that I was bleeding and was thinking, ‘oh god’,” she says.
“I went to the toilet and there was blood.
“I just thought I had to go back out there and do the interview which was for a basketball festival coming to the Gold Coast.
“I remember standing there trying to focus on what I was trying to say. It was really difficult. Then when I got back to the office, I went to the toilets again.
“I called my sister and I said, ‘I think I’m having a miscarriage.’ She told me to go home but I said, ‘No, I’ll get through the day’.”
Somehow, she made it through that day, and the next and the next, but she could feel the lights slowly dimming, her hope of becoming a mother slipping further away.
“That was the point where I was like, I think this is all over, I think we should probably realistically start thinking that we won’t have a baby,” she says.
“It was sad but then I also kept trying to convince myself that I don’t really need to have a baby to feel fulfilled. There was a whole range of emotions going on.
“A lot of women go through it.”
Every pregnancy or birth announcement from friends would spark joy followed almost instantly by a quiet ache and reminder of everything she was still fighting for.
It took its toll on her body and her spirit.
“It’s all soul destroying,” says Loudon of experiencing infertility.
“I was seeing a psychologist, I had to get a fair bit of help to get through it all. We would take breaks and then gear ourselves up again and go again. You start to think is it worth it? Am I on the right path? Is this what I should be doing? The fact that it’s so hard, does this mean it’s something we shouldn’t be doing?”
Weathering every high and low with Loudon was Lang.
He’s a man once known for his brute strength and tough approach to NRL throughout his career playing for the Cronulla Sharks and Penrith Panthers between 1996 and 2004, including helping the Panthers to a premiership win in 2003.
Lang’s time in elite sport prompted him to study his PhD in neuroscience, which he finished in January, with a focus on concussion in contact sports.
But no blow could compare to the devastating emotional toll of infertility.
“It was very difficult because there was not a lot I could have done,” says Lang, who was raised in Mansfield in Brisbane’s south, and also represented Queensland in State of Origin between 1998 and 2000.
“Dominique had to go through it all with the injections and everything else, all the medication she was taking and I didn’t have to take anything, so at times I felt a bit guilty.
“I tried to be as supportive as I could but it’s certainly a very difficult thing to go through. One of the biggest things for me was concern for Dominique and how she was feeling.”
However, in 2023, came a flicker of hope after they met with obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr Drew Moffrey at Pindara Private Hospital.
He suggested the couple be tested for a rare genetic condition known as the DQ Alpha gene, which could be contributing to their unexplained infertility.
“I’d booked in to see him when I was still pregnant but when I found out I miscarried, I contacted his office and asked if we could still come and chat to him,” Loudon says.
“We chatted to him about our history and he said, have you heard of the DQ Alpha gene?
“I was like, no, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
The couple took the information to their fertility doctor, Dr Ong, who organised further investigations and a blood test, which confirmed both Loudon and Lang were a partial match.
Ong says studies into the condition show links to recurrent miscarriage and implantation failure as it causes the female’s immune system to reject embryos, making it hard to conceive naturally.
“DQ Alpha gene is a gene that’s involved in helping the body identify and prevent foreign antigens from attacking and making us unwell,” says Ong, founding specialist of the Centre of Reproductive Medicine and Surgery.
“Having a genetic match for DQ may result in the uterus not recognising the embryo. The immune system gets activated resulting in enhanced NK cells, which play a crucial role in the body’s defence against infections, that will then ‘reject the pregnancy’.
“Elevated NK cells may hinder the implantation of the embryo or contribute to recurrent miscarriage.”
With only two specialists in this condition in the country, the couple were referred to Dr Nick Lolatgis in Melbourne who devised a treatment plan remotely, while Ong, on the Gold Coast, oversaw their care locally.
The little-known treatment is a complex combination of immune protocols, LMIT (Lymphocyte Membrane Immunotherapy) and blood transfusions.
The process involves a serum using Lang’s blood which is then put into Loudon’s body.
Ong explains, “This involves using Martin’s white blood cells to immunise against Dom’s. It works by desensitising Dom’s immune system so that she does not react and activate more NK cells,” Ong says.
He says patients remain on medication until they are 12-14 weeks’ pregnant.
Loudon says it felt every bit as complicated as it sounds with many elements to navigate.
“The LMIT was really full on,” she says.
“That was where Martin had to go to a clinic in Woolloongabba in Brisbane and get his blood taken on a Tuesday and then that would get sent to Melbourne and get treated down there and spun and then his white blood cells were sent back to Brisbane on a Friday and were injected into my arm.
“I would have to put a numbing patch on my arm three hours before I would get his white blood cells injected into me.
“It looked like little bee stings, this little needle going into my arm and that was also to make my body kind of accept Martin’s white blood cells so it wouldn’t reject the embryo.”
Ong says after the completion of LMIT, it provides couples with a six-month window when IVF attempts could prove more effective.
At first, Loudon brushed it off as an “expensive science experiment”.
“I was more doubtful but I think I was ramping myself up for failure because I just thought it’s better than too much hope,” she says. “It just felt really a bit wacky, didn’t it?”
She looks to Lang, who smiles and says, “I was quite motivated by it, because it gave us hope.”
After one round, it helped bring them baby Josie. But Loudon is quick to acknowledge how lucky she feels. It’s a treatment still under research and has no guarantee of success.
“Not all IVF providers believe in treating the DQ Alpha gene and the treatment we did is by no means a silver bullet,” Loudon says.
Ong says it remains divisive in the medical fraternity “due to the lack of randomised control trials”.
“DQ Alpha gene is still very much an evolving science and remains very controversial; more studies are required,” he says.
“HLA DQ is something to discuss when routine IVF cycles have not worked and the idea is that we should not keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome.
“Open conversations are crucial in medicine. Patients need to be informed and given the option to investigate for this if they choose.”
The couple now look back on all they endured to get here and are grateful for the distractions that kept them moving when things felt impossible.
“I was working and doing my PhD and Dominique was obviously busy at work with some of that in Brisbane, so it was so busy and thankfully time was passing by quickly and gave us distractions,” says Lang, who also has an degree in exercise biomedical science and owns a spinal medical device business.
But along the way there were some distractions that weren’t welcome including when they experienced an attempted home invasion in February, when Loudon was eight months’ pregnant, and when Cyclone Alfred wreaked havoc on the Gold Coast a week before Loudon was due to give birth.
Now, sharing their story from the couch of their Burleigh Heads home, they couldn’t be more content. The couple are about to start their next chapter where they will soon move into the new home they recently bought nearby. Life is a whirlwind of chaos, noise and mess, but it is everything they ever wanted.
Loudon looks down at her little girl peacefully sleeping in her arms and smiles.
One day she will tell Josie the story of how she came to be.
How her parents never gave up on her.
How she taught them the depth of their love, for her and for each other.
How science made it all possible and, above all, how she is their little miracle.
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