Total Bellas: Nikki Bella fears losing Artem Chigvintsev if she can’t conceive after pregnancy scare

Nikki Bella worried she might lose her boyfriend if she couldn’t have a baby, she revealed on Thursday’s episode of Total Bellas.

The 36-year-old former WWE wrestler is expecting her first child this summer, but when she took a test after an earlier pregnancy scare, it turned up negative.

She’d just confessed to boyfriend Artem Chigvintsev, 37, that her period was two weeks late, and he seemed delighted by the idea that she could be pregnant.

‘I always want to have a family; I’ll always want to have kids,’ he told the cameras. ‘I love Nicole, and I see a future with Nicole. And part of that is to have a family.’

At first, Nikki was relieved to find out she wasn’t pregnant, but later she wondered if she shouldn’t have pursued the idea of having children earlier.

‘I know a lot of things change for women when they turn 35 as far as fertility,’ she said to her sister Brie, 36. ‘So in this moment, right now, I’m like, ”Why didn’t I get pregnant? What if I’m not able to have kids?”’

Over dinner with Artem, she articulated her concerns, asked him to be ‘one hundred percent honest’ about whether he would leave her if she couldn’t have a child.

‘I don’t know,’ Artem admitted. ‘I don’t know if it’s something that I will regret for the rest of my life later on in my life and in our life.’

He had been extremely enthusiastic about the idea of them having a baby, even following her into the bathroom while she took the test in case she was ‘cheating.’

Nikki peered at the stick while she peed on it, asking Artem, ‘How much do you need?’

Her boyfriend shone his phone’s flashlight onto the test, and Nikki threw him out of the room.

After she finished, her mom Kathy Laurinaitis joined her, and put Brie and her husband Bryan Danielson, 38, on the phone.

The couple jokingly offered to adopt Nikki’s baby, and even suggested a name: Artemis ‘Dick’ Danielson.

But Artem, who was holding the test, looked down at it and announced, ‘It’s negative.’

‘How do you guys feel?’ Kathy asked them.

‘Relieved. Happy,’ Nikki said, explaining that she hadn’t wanted their lives to change.

‘Bummed,’ Artem replied, noting that the tiny bit of hope he’d had was just squashed.

‘I love Artem to death, but why would I want to be pregnant?’ Nikki said in a confessional.

‘My companies need my attention 24/7, which is already difficult. And then the podcast, YouTube channel, and a wine tour… there’s a lot of things I need to check off my list,’ Nikki added.

‘By the way,’ she continued, ‘I don’t even know what Artem’s beliefs are with kids. That would freak me out. All of a sudden, I’m gonna have a baby with this guy and I don’t even know his values on raising a kid.’

Working out at Brie’s house later, Nikki observed that Brie’s marriage had lost some of its intimacy after she had her daughter, Birdie, three.

Brie admitted that she and Bryan had become ‘ships in the night’ due to their busy schedules.

She tried to repair things with Bryan that night, walking in on him in the bedroom as he watched a video about hair-braiding to understand how to do Birdie’s hair.

Wanting to test out his knowledge, he braided Brie’s hair, then she braided his and suggested they send pictures of their efforts to Nikki to see who had ‘the best braid.’

‘Why are you worried about Nicole when we’re having alone time?’ Bryan asked, feeling their connection ebb.

Nikki had been staying in Brie and Bryan’s guest room while her home next door was being finished, and at dinner later, she told the couple she needed three more weeks.

Bryan said privately that he didn’t mind; he just hated when Brie focused solely on her sister.

‘It’s not what we planned,’ Brie told Bryan as they drove home. ‘But I’m not too upset by it.’

‘I think mostly because you don’t care if we get alone time or not,’ Bryan replied, complaining about the fact that Brie, Nikki and Artem sat around watching TV all day.

Artem tried to find common ground with Bryan, but wondered if they were just too different.

He then left Nikki to go on a trip to London, where a challenger was threatening to upend his Guinness world record for dancing the most botofogo steps in 30 seconds.

While he was gone, Nikki and Brie took part in a photo shoot, and got to talking about kids.

‘I’m about to be 36, so everyone has kids except for me,’ Nikki mused. ‘And I really want a kid. I feel like lately I’ve had a little bit of baby fever, but then I just freak out… I really love my career. That’s my baby.’

‘I just wish there wasn’t time on it,’ she added. ‘I wish we could get pregnant in a healthy way at any age.’

After their talk, Brie resolved to tackle her issues with Bryan, showing him that they had no space on their calendar for a ‘date night.’

Birdie colored on the calendar, which made Brie observe that they always put her needs first.

‘It’s fine that Birdie comes first,’ Bryan said. ‘It’s just not great when Daddy comes number four.’

The discussion unsettled Brie, and she ended up squabbling with Nikki over her stay at their house, snapping at her for parking in their garage, sharing groceries and leaving dirty dishes.

‘I know my sister really, really well,’ Nikki told the cameras. ‘Something else has to be going on.’

She offered to rent a place on Airbnb, and stormed out, telling Brie, ‘You’re such a b****.’

Nikki then picked Artem up at the airport and took him to a restaurant, where she had him photograph her for her Instagram page to make Brie ‘jealous.’

The conversation turned serious when she asked Artem if he would still be with her if she couldn’t have a child.

He admitted he didn’t know, saying, ‘Look, family’s very important to me—and you knew that from the very beginning.’

He asked Nikki why they were having that conversation at that moment.

‘I am in the middle of the biggest clicking tock—ticking clock—ever,’ she began.

Before she could say another word, a waiter retrieving a bottle of wine from the table accidentally hit her arm, and she dumped red wine all over her dress.

‘Don’t even worry about it,’ she soothed, telling Artem she ‘felt terrible’ for the young man.

Back at Brie’s house, Bryan said that he had scheduled a trip for the two of them the following week, and was going to have Kathy watch Birdie.

‘It’s within driving distance and it’s a place from our past,’ he teased Brie, who loved the idea, and figured out that it was Sedona, Arizona.

He and Artem then worked together to build a meditation garden for Brie, which gave Artem the bonding time he wanted.

Nikki climbed over the wall separating her home from Brie’s and the two sisters decided to talk.

They swung on swings in Birdie’s playground, and Brie apologized to Nikki, saying she’d only gotten angry because she’d been frustrated with Bryan.

‘Well, I forgive you,’ Nikki said.

Brie suggested the two of them start going to ‘sister therapy’ and Nikki said she would never do it.

Total Bellas will return next week on the E! network.