A former UFC women’s featherweight champion Germaine de Randamie is targeting a return to MMA later this year after giving birth.

Last September, De Randamie (10-4 MMA, 7-2 UFC), along with her partner Samantha, announced she was pregnant and would naturally take time away from fighting. De Randamie gave birth to their son Isaiah on March 20. After enjoying the beginning of motherhood, the former champion is training for a comeback to the cage.

“We are full in training and I don’t have a date yet, but we are going for November or October, end of October or November,” De Randamie told UFC Eurosport (translated by YouTube). “I’m feeling good, I’m waiting for the call right now. My manager is negotiating, so we’ll see, but 2023 it will be anyway.”

De Randamie, 39, was last in action at UFC on ESPN 16 in October 2020, when she submitted Julianna Pena in the third round of their bantamweight bout. She earned the second Performance of the Night bonus of her career for the finish, which marked a return to the win column after a bantamweight title challenge loss to then-champion Amanda Nunes. She was booked to fight Irene Aldana over a year later, but had to withdraw due to injury.

The Dutch fighter says her newborn son has lit a new fire inside her, and she wants to make him proud in her return. De Randamie has no preference for an opponent, nor did she specify which weight class she will compete in. However, she admits getting back into the groove of training after her lengthy layoff has been hard.

“I have to say very honestly after three years it is tough because I am also getting older by the day,” De Randamie said. “My body feels that, but there is a fire burning in me. You can no longer take that figure away, and especially now that I have become a mother, I fight with a different goal: my little man. I want to make him proud. … So in the end, whoever is in front of me, it will be them or me, that’s one thing for sure.”