Hoda Kotb's journey to becoming a mom may have been an emotional one, but now when she looks back on it, only happy tears fall.
The longtime Today Show star first became a mom at age 52 in 2017, when she adopted daughter Haley Joy, six, with her fiancé at the time, Joel Schiffman. They adopted Haley's little sister, Hope Catherine, three, two years later.
Though Hoda and Joel broke up in 2022, they have continued to co-parent both their daughters.
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The mom-of-two has always been open about her journey with motherhood, particularly the feelings that came with becoming a mom later in life, and during a recent appearance on former RHONY star Bethenny Frankel's podcast, Just B with Bethenny Frankel, she recalled when she first learned that her first daughter would arrive home soon.
"I remember never saying out loud that I wanted kids, never, because it was too late," she first admitted, adding: "For girls that it's too late for, you don't say it because if you say it, you're expressing something that you're never going to get."
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Despite her conflicting feelings, she said she kept coming across signs that further convinced her to become a mom, and remembering starting the adoption process, she said: "I filled out all the paperwork and did all the stuff that you do, and they're like, 'Okay, maybe a year, maybe six months, maybe five years, bye.'"
© GettyShe then grew emotional as she went into detail of when she finally got the good news of Haley's adoption.
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"I was sitting there, and I was doing some phone call with some nutritionist about something and babbling on and on. My phone beeped, and I looked at it, and it said Ashley, and Ashley was the lady from my adoption agency, and she [had] said, 'If I ever text you, you need to call me back immediately,'" Hoda said.
© GettyShe revealed: "I saw her name, I hung up the phone, I took a yellow pad out, and I wrote, '11:55. This is the moment everything changes.' I knew it," before adding: "And I took a deep breath and dialed the number, and I said, 'Ashley?' and she said two words to me. She said, 'She's here.'"
The news anchor noted: "I don't know what birth feels like, and I bet it was amazing, but this was really close," and shared: "I remember that feeling like it was yesterday."
Hoda previously opened up on the Today Show about why she decided to name her first daughter Haley, inspired by the adoption process.
"She seemed so one in a million," she told Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager during a June 2022 episode of 4th Hour with Hoda and Jenna, as she said that the happy news made her think of Halley's Comet, one of the most iconic space phenomena in the world, that occurs once every 75 years.
© InstagramHer middle name was her sister's suggestion, an idea that came easily to her when Hoda would tell her what a "joy" her new baby was.
When it came to naming Hope, she admitted: "It was such a no-brainer, it was such an easy pick," and, in reference to being with Joel at the time, and their wish of having children, she explained: "That's what we'd been doing, was hoping, and then she came. That was just simple."
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