Today anchor Hoda Kotb revealed, well, today, that she is a mother. The 52-year-old TV host called her morning show on Tuesday to reveal that she has adopted a little girl named Haley Joy Kotb. The child was actually born on this day last week — Valentine’s Day.
Kotb has been off so that she can take care of Haley, who is her first child.
“She’s a Valentine’s baby so she’s a little nugget,” Hoda said when speaking to Matt Lauer and the Today show family. “She is the love of my life!”
Kotb kept the baby news a secret from most of the folks at Today, with the exception of spilling the beans to Lauer and her co-host, Kathie Lee Gifford.
According to Kotb, she came up with the name Haley after Halley’s comet, and the child’s middle name describes the sense of happiness she’s currently feeling.
“It was one of those things where I just picture her sailing through the sky,” she said. “My sister and I were talking on the phone and she said, ‘You know I’m Hala and you’re Hoda, we have a Hannah,’ so we said, what about Haley? And Joy just because she brings us joy. She’s got a beautiful way about her…can you believe I have a daughter?”
Kotb admitted that for years, when people would ask her if she was a mother “it was one of those things that was always sort of an ouch or an ache.” Now that she is a parent, Kotb said the most surprising thing about parenthood is the amount of love she feels for her daughter. She says it surpasses all the loves she’s ever felt, including the love from her family and current boyfriend, Joel Schiffman.
“I didn’t know that my heart could feel like this. I just didn’t,” Kotb said. “With all the love I’ve ever had in my life…I’ve never ever imagined that I could feel this kind of — it’s like a warm hand up against my heart. I’m over the moon.”
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