The Bella twins are opening up about their baby boys, who were born just one day apart!
People
Nikki and Brie have finally revealed their newborns’ unique names and are getting candid about their birth stories, even revealing something about the boys that they found to be identical.
Nikki and her fiancé Artem Chigvintsev welcomed their little guy on July 31. She shared a sweet photo of her son on Instagram, announcing he is named Matteo Artemovich Chigvintsev.
The “Total Bellas” star opened up to People about how they decided on the name, saying, “When I was pregnant, my trainer was talking about his son and this strength that he has and that when he gets knocked down, he gets right back up. And when he said, ‘Oh, my Matteo,’ I got alligator chills from head to toe.”
She went on, “So I came home and I go, ‘Artem, if we’re having a boy, his name’s Matteo.’I got this feeling when my trainer was talking about him. It means God’s gift.” Nikki’s mother is Italian, so they chose to use the Italian spelling, with two T’s.
Matteo’s middle name honors Artem’s Russian heritage. “In the Russian culture and tradition, you always take the father’s first name as the middle name and you add ‘vich’ if it’s a boy. So we kept that tradition. It’s such a strong name. I love it because you rarely hear it. I had such an attachment to it. I just feel like my Matteo is such a light in this world. It fits in perfect.”
Brie and husband Daniel Bryan welcomed their baby boy on August 1. She revealed his name is Buddy Dessert Danielson!
“We named our son Buddy because he’s named after his late grandfather,” Brie told People. “Bryan’s dad (who died in 2014) really wanted a grandson, and unfortunately, he’s not alive to see that. But Bryan also really wanted a son to carry on the Danielson name. So we thought, ‘How special to be named after his late grandfather?'”
Brie, who also has a 3-year-old daughter named Birdie, went on to explain Buddy’s middle name. “For his middle name, I really wanted to incorporate my family,” she said. “Birdie’s middle name is Joe after my grandfather, who just meant the world to me. So I wanted Buddy to have something of my grandmother. Her last name, her maiden name, is Dessert. When you look at it, people are going to say Dessert, because it’s French. But it’s pronounced ‘desert.'”
The moms also gushed over their babies, with Nikki saying, “The fact that he’s here — I’m just so in love and happy,” and Brie adding, “the love is just so overpowering that even though you’re so tired, that bliss just takes over.”
Nikki opened up about her birth story, explaining that she was about to be induced one week early when her water broke.
“Artem and I were so not prepared,” she confessed. “We barely had bags packed. I labored for 22 hours, and I pushed for two hours while wearing a mask because of COVID-19. It was 118 degrees in Phoenix, and our room wouldn’t get colder than 76 degrees, so I was burning hot the whole time. I had two more rounds of pushing [to go] until my doctor said, ‘You’re going to have to have a C-section.’ I said, ‘No, he’s coming out vaginally.'”
“I looked at Artem [who was allowed in the room with a mask], and I go, ‘Put on the Lumineers!’ And literally we ‘Hey Ho’-ed and ‘-Ophelia’-ed Matteo into this world,” she said. “I have never pushed so hard in my life. I almost tore off the handlebars!”
Meanwhile, Brie was scheduled for a C-section on Aug. 1, joking she was a little “upset” when Nikki went into labor first.
She explained she had a C-section with Birdie and hoped to have a vaginal birth with Buddy, but insisted, “I make stubborn babies, and they don’t like to come out.”
Brie continued, “When Matteo came on the 31st, I was like, ‘No matter what, my baby is coming at 9 a.m. tomorrow.’ We didn’t know it was a boy yet. This experience was so different from my last — just to walk into a C-section and be completely alert. When they pulled out Buddy, they put down the curtain, and my husband was like, ‘Oh, I got a boy!’ We were really overwhelmed with joy.”
The moms, who ended up in hospital rooms right next to each other, found their baby boys have an identical cry!
“What’s crazy about Buddy and Matteo is, they both have the same scream-cry,” Nikki said. “It’s the cutest high-pitch noise and they’re identical. Even their coos are identical and they’re so cute. Now, Matteo, he will grunt and like punch my boobs when he’s breastfeeding. Artem and I will sit and laugh because it’s perfect little punches he’ll do. He grunts at me, so I feel like I have a little boxer on my hands.”
Brie shared, “Buddy loves kicking. I actually was really nervous, because everyone’s like, ‘If you have a good baby, you’re going to have a really bad one.’ I was like, ‘Well, Birdie was so good. So here comes my wild one.’ He’s calmer than what Birdie was.”
She added, “[Both babies] are calm and patient. We’re the wild ones and very feisty. Our little boys don’t have our personalities yet. Birdie does. Birdie is our mini.”