Footy WAG opens up about her heartbreaking battle to have children after her marriage to AFL star fell apart just months after they tied the knot: 'I was a shell of a human'

Former WAG Maddison Sullivan-Thorpe has opened up about her marriage breakdown to AFL star Lachie Hunter and the emotional toll of her heartbreaking four-year IVF journey.

Sullivan-Thorpe, 30, split with her Bulldogs star husband in 2023 after less than a year of marriage and has since made peace with the fact that she will probably never be able to have kids.

She started IVF at age 23 after visiting a fertility specialist and eventually gave up after lack of success. 

'My fertility specialist is one of the most incredible women I've ever had the privilege of knowing - she was really honest about what the likelihood of that (sixth) round was,' Sullivan-Thorpe told the Inherited podcast. 

'It didn't stop at absolutely breaking my heart. I think I was broken-hearted going into that and I was crushed finishing it. 

'But I always say doing IVF is being part of a club that no one wants to be a part of and yet it is the most beautiful embodiment of the sisterhood you will ever see. 

'And I am so grateful to every woman who ever reached out to me... who was so generous of spirit. It's a heartache like nothing else.

'And I think the challenge for me was I went from trying to have a baby to trying to preserve the idea of having a baby and the opportunity. 

'Motherhood is something I've chosen to define very differently as I've gotten older and worked through the likelihood for me.

'I've done everything I can and will forever be so grateful to the 23 to 27 year-old version of me who gave everything and sacrificed so much to potentially give me the opportunity to be a mum.'

Sullivan-Thorpe, who now has a fashion podcast and has founded Dom St Consulting, spoke about how emotionally draining the process was.

'When you're told that you may not be able to have something that you thought you could maybe do 10-12 years later - I always thought I'd be like a 35, 38 year-old mum,' she said.

'And that's a naivety younger me had in of itself. I don't know many 23 year-olds are thinking about fertility at that age.

'I actually got George (her golden retriever) the day before I went in for my third egg retrieval and it was love at first sight. This tiny beautiful thing that needed me and I needed him. I went in and they had not always been great days for me. 

'He was an unintentional Covid dog. Every morning I walk with him. Going through the fertility struggles that I continued with for a few years after that, and then the breakdown of a long-term relationship, it's very easy to want to lay in bed and pull the cover over your eyes and do all those things and wallow. 

'But when you have a 30kg dog... you've got to get up. I love that ritual because I have to do something for someone else every day.'

Sullivan-Thorpe says she's doing a lot better these days and she owes a lot to her friends who have stood by her through thick and thin.

'I was a shell of a human. I could not have got through it without them,' she said.

'I think a lot about the way they showed up for me. I was incredibly low and incredibly distressed. It was complex and they were there.

'For so long I thought I'd never feel love again. I've never felt more loved, more respected or seen such loyalty in my entire life than I have from my friends. 

'And they would go to war for them and I them. And I wake up just going if I can be half a friend they have been to me that is all I could achieve.'