At a glance…
- We sat down with Abbey Holmes and her husband, Keegan Brooksy, to meet their baby boy for the October 2025 issue.
- Since then, Abbey has announced her second pregnancy.
- Read on for our exclusive feature.
Abbey Holmes admits she loses track of time staring into her bub’s eyes. Especially in those quiet moments when he’s nestled softly in her arms, feeding.
“It’s the way he looks at me, his eyes are so intent, and I wonder what he is thinking,” she says, gently rubbing baby Brax’s toes.
As if on cue, the seven-week-old’s tiny fingers unclench and grasp for his mum. His little hand wraps around her finger for comfort.
“When he starts to wake up after a sleep and his eyes are just beginning to open, he looks at you with a knowing look, like he recognises us and he’s happy to see us, that’s my favourite moment,” says proud dad, former AFL player Keegan Brooksby.
It’s not at all surprising to learn that within hours of his dramatic arrival into the world, baby Braxton John Brooksby was tucked up in his mum’s arms, watching the footy.
For the popular 7AFL commentator, it was the perfect way to catch her breath after a difficult labour, which ended in a last-minute caesarean.
With his dad’s towering height, baby Brooksby was destined to be a big bub. He measured in the ninetieth percentile throughout Abbey’s pregnancy, and he was in no hurry to make his way into the world.
“The doctors broke my waters and I laboured all day,” says Abbey, 34. “But after eleven hours, I was still only two centimetres dilated, and not making any progress. So the decision was made for him to come out.
“His head was big and he wasn’t moving anywhere, and my doctor said, ‘You’d be pushing until Christmas and this bub would not come out’. We didn’t have a birth plan. We were just happy to go with the flow, whichever was the safest way for him to arrive,” she says, eyes locked on the sleeping bundle in her arms.
“The moment the doctor put him on my chest and I held his little hand, it will be etched in my mind forever.”
Everything about baby Brax’s arrival into the world was a delightful surprise for the football power couple, who have welcomed The Weekly into the beautiful Melbourne bayside home they have almost finished renovating.
After a lifetime of pushing herself to extremes on and off the sporting field, Abbey, a former netball champion who became an AFL trailblazer and the first Australian woman to kick 100 goals in a season, thought she may have trouble conceiving.
The elite athlete who represented Australia, South Australia, and the Northern Territory in netball, before excelling with the NT Waratahs’ and the Adelaide Crows AFLW teams, put her body to the test competing in SAS Australia and Australian Survivor, and it took an unexpected toll.
“After Survivor, I didn’t get my period for more than twelve months. I put my body through hell, and we thought we might have a lot of trouble getting pregnant,” she says.
“We’d actually been to see a fertility doctor, thinking it might be a long process and we might need IVF, but I was already pregnant and didn’t know it.”
Incredibly, the super-mum ran the New York marathon last November, blissfully unaware she was carrying a passenger. She recalls feeling fatigued at the time, but put it down to her gruelling schedule flying all over Australia for Channel Seven’s AFL coverage, and training for the marathon.
However, when she returned from New York and travelled to Sydney to appear at a major presentation for Channel Seven, she began to suspect something more than jet lag.
“I’m a big coffee drinker, I’m obsessed with coffee, but I couldn’t even look at it. I couldn’t think of anything worse than having a coffee, so I knew something was up. I’m pretty tuned to my body, and I watch what I eat carefully, but all I wanted was toasted sandwiches and Smith’s crisps!” she laughs.
Alone in her Sydney hotel room, she did a pregnancy test, which confirmed the exciting news. However, she wanted to be certain before sharing the news with Keegan, Hawthorn AFLW team Assistant Coach and List Manager, when she returned home.
“I got Uber Eats to deliver a three-pack of pregnancy tests and did them all!” she laughs.
“I was already 12 weeks along when we found out, so we effectively missed the first trimester, but I felt great, and I’m so fortunate because I know a lot of women have an incredibly tough time in the first trimester.”
The couple announced the pregnancy in January when a gentle baby bump began to poke through the normally svelte star’s jeans. Abbey embraced her changing shape and says that allowing her body to do what it needed has been a welcome change to her normally disciplined training routine.
“I was fortunate to have a wonderful pregnancy, and I loved being pregnant. I loved my baby belly,” she says.
Since she joined 7AFL’s team in 2018, Abbey has become a footy favourite, known for her insightful commentary, in-depth knowledge and enthusiastic love of the game.
In a traditionally male-dominated field, she’s won the respect of players and coaches and developed a rapport and friendship with many.
So, she was shocked when a furore erupted last year after her mate, the Brisbane Lions’ Captain Lachie Neale, gave her a friendly peck on the cheek after a game.
Days later, a newspaper column accused Neale of overstepping the boundary and inappropriate workplace behaviour.
“It’s disappointing this became a story,” Abbey says, “every week players give me a kiss on the cheek or a cuddle, and I don’t think twice about it. I’m proud of the trust that I have from the players and coaches; they know they’re in a safe space with me, I’m not trying to break a headline or stitch them up in some way.”
After working hard to build her career, she wasn’t going to let the criticism derail her.
In fact, for many years, not even her bosses at Channel Seven knew just how hard the former real estate agent was working to pursue her dream career in television.
Her lucky break came in 2014 when she was the first woman invited to play alongside the greats of the men’s game, in the AFL’s Legends Game.
Abbey was just 24 at the time and met Sunrise sports presenter Mark Beretta, who introduced her to Channel Seven’s Head of AFL and Sport, Gary O’Keeffe. When O’Keeffe invited Abbey to meet at their Melbourne studio, she didn’t blink, accepting immediately, even though she lived in Darwin.
“I thought ‘I’ll just say yes and work it out later’, I was on the bones of my backside, a young real estate agent working on commission, but I had to give it a go. So, I booked the red eye from Darwin at 2am, landed in Melbourne at 6am and had hours to kill before the interview. I couldn’t even afford a taxi, so I caught the Sky Bus to the Docklands, had the meeting, and was on a flight back to Darwin that afternoon to go to work the next day.”
O’Keeffe, blissfully unaware Abbey lived in Darwin, offered her the chance to audition as a boundary commentator during a VFL match in Melbourne the following weekend. She booked the red-eye again and successfully landed a regular weekend commentating gig.
For the next two years, she spent every weekend commuting between Melbourne and her home in Darwin, where she worked, at her own expense, before she was offered a role in the 7AFL team.
“Those two years commuting from Darwin nearly killed me, but that’s what I had to do to get my break. When I was growing up, I never knew it was possible to be a female commentator because I never saw that. But once I did, I made sure to do everything in my power to take it as far as I could. I had many knockbacks, but I kept going and I’m forever grateful to Gary for giving a young girl who loves footy a go.”
Abbey is no stranger to travelling long distances to pursue things she loves, and she happily notched up frequent flyer points when her relationship with Keegan, 35, blossomed.
In December 2017, the pair – who grew up in Adelaide – found themselves home and single at the same time. Abbey was playing football with the Adelaide Crows AFLW team while Keegan was the captain of South Adelaide.
Nudging their single pal along, Abbey’s friends set up a profile on a dating app where she bumped into Keegan, who had also reluctantly dipped a toe in the online-dating water.
As fate would have it, their first dating-app date was also their last.
They met for coffee, which extended into a movie, followed by dinner, a long walk on the beach and after 8 hours together, they made a promise that they’d never be apart again.
“I just felt so comfortable with Abbey straight away, I felt like I was home”, says Keegan. “She has all the qualities I like in people; she is self-motivated, caring, she works hard, and she is a very positive person. We connected instantly, it wasn’t forced at all, and it felt right. From that day on, we’ve never been apart, aside from the geographical challenges of work.”
In 2023, they married in a romantic ceremony in the shadows of Uluru in the Northern Territory, in the exact spot where Keegan got down on one knee and proposed three years earlier.
The arrival of baby Brax has only deepened their respect and love for one another.
“I am in awe of what Abbey has done,” says Keegan, praising his wife’s ability to take on any challenge, while taking a turn, gently rocking Brax back and forth, trying to lull him to sleep.
“In those early days when I was still chasing opportunities, playing footy and trying to break into the media landscape, I was all over the place and Keegs was the calm to my chaos,” Abbey says. “He’s very measured, I love everything about him, but his eyes are kind, and caring and thoughtful, and I think Brax has his eyes at the moment.”
With Brax beginning to settle into a routine, Abbey has returned to work a couple of nights a week as a boundary rider for Seven’s AFL coverage.
While her announcement was welcomed by her fans, some keyboard warriors dared to mum-shame her for going back to work. She graciously brushes off comments like ‘stay at home and look after your baby’ and ‘shame on you’, and won’t take the haters to heart, reiterating that it was the right call for her and the perfect balance for their family.
“I feel incredibly lucky to step back into a job I love, while soaking up the joy of being a mum,” she said. “Social media can be a wild place. I’m excited to be back at work, and Keegs is the ultimate teammate and the best support I can have. We’ll rely on one another and make it work. We are both pretty chilled people, we’ll do things our own way and make our own decisions on what feels right for us.”
“Even through Abbey’s pregnancy we didn’t read baby books or listen to pregnancy podcasts, we went with the flow of what was happening with us, we wanted to feel it and experience it on our own,” Keegan adds, “There’s so many people offering advice and opinions on social media and you don’t know if any of them have any idea what they are talking about.”
While the couple shares much of their lives intimately on social media, and it’s largely been a positive experience, they’ve also seen the pitfalls of life in the public eye and are wary about how much they will share of their young family in the future.
“We’ll take it one step at a time,” adds Abbey. “We’ll go by what feels right for us as we go.”
With renovations almost complete, their beautiful, sunlit home is the perfect place for lazy afternoon naps with Brax, blissfully immersed in a baby bubble as they find their footing as parents. Abbey says that Brax’s nursery, with its soft green tones, has become a favourite sanctuary for her to enjoy quiet moments and cuddles while her bub is feeding.
It’s a newfound stillness in her life that she hasn’t had for many years. She’s relishing every minute and already contemplating a teammate or two for Brax in the future.
“I joke that I want a million babies now. If we are fortunate enough, we’d love to extend the family. It’s the hardest thing we’ve ever done, but it’s bliss.”
In July 2026, Abbey and Keegan announced their second pregnancy.
“Keegs, Braxxy & I are so excited to let you all know that we are growing our family, expecting another beautiful little baby to join us in Jan 2027!” Anney wrote on Instagram. “We feel incredibly lucky to be in this position and can’t wait for Brax to become a big brother – he’s going to nail it!”
She brought along the growing bub as a plus-one to the 66th TV WEEK Logie Awards!
This article originally appeared in the October 2025 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
