Kinberly Novaes won MMA title while 12 weeks pregnant

Brazilian MMA fighter Kinberly Novaes said Sunday that when she won the Noxii 115-pound title on May 17 by defeating Renata Baldan, she was 12 weeks pregnant. But she didn’t know it at the time.

Novaes said she discovered she was pregnant while preparing for her Aug. 21 fight against Jocelyn Jones. Novaes said she was having trouble losing weight to make the weight limit -- something she never had a problem with in the past -- and went to a doctor to find out why. The doctor found out why: She is six months pregnant with a baby boy.

“We did a morphology ultrasound last week and the doctor said I’m 24 weeks pregnant, almost six months, and my baby is healthy and strong,” Novaes told MMAFighting.com.

Novaes said she then did the math and realized she was pregnant when she defeated Baldan.

So, how do you become six months pregnant and not know it?

“I’m a little stubborn, I don’t like to go to the doctor,” Novaes said. “I’ve been feeling sick for a while, colic, headaches and cramps. I was feeling tired recently, couldn’t even run, and it was really tough for me to cut weight. ... I actually gained 2.2 pounds in six days.

“I finally decided to go to the hospital, and the doctor immediately asked me if I was pregnant. I insisted I was not, that I had an intestine issue, but he asked for a blood test. One hour later, he told us I was pregnant. I cried a lot, ran out of the hospital, but I realized that was good news. I thought I was sick, but I had a baby instead.”

Noxii, an MMA organization based in Brazil, didn’t test her for pregnancy before her May 17 fight.

“I didn’t ask for the exam. That’s the truth,” Noxii promoter Bruno Barros told MMAFighting.com. “I didn’t even think about the possibility of a woman fighting while pregnant, going through a camp and dehydrating and everything.”