Hoda Kotb kind of feels like America's mom. She's such a kind and genuine soul. It's almost hard to believe that she's only been a mother for a few years.
The Today host is pretty much an open book when it comes to her life. But now she's opening up about her experience with becoming a mom in a new podcast from People magazine called Me Becoming Mom. Hoda shares a lot of personal anecdotes on the first episode of the show. One of the most moving has to be when she talks about the exact moment she realized that life without kids wasn't an option for her.
The 57-year-old says the moment happened when she was with a close friend. "I was actually with a girlfriend and we were walking down a street and I remember it like it was yesterday," she recalled. "Because I had never shared it with anyone that I had wanted — I still yearned for having children — because it seemed like wanting to go to the moon, it's not happening, so don't even bring it up."
"So she said, 'Well, neither of us really wanted to have children.' I looked at her and I said, 'Well, I do.' I didn't say did; I said I do. She looked at me and she goes, 'What?' I started crying. I said, 'I do. I do.' I said it out loud, 'I do,'" Hoda told Zoë Ruderman, head of editorial at People Digital.
The moment likely took her friend by surprise. But Hoda said it shocked her, as well. Her battle with breast cancer in 2007 had left her unable to conceive, and so she had thought she would never have kids. "It was so weird. It was an everyday moment that turned into an epiphany and I had never spoken it," she said.
Hoda is now the mother of two girls. She adopted daughters Hope Catherine, 2, and Haley Joy, 4, with her fiancé Joel Schiffman. But Hoda says that it wasn't until she said it out loud that she really realized she needed to become a mother.
"I was like, 'Oh my God, I do want to have children, right now. Here in my current state,'" she revealed in the podcast. It was definitely a big aha moment for Hoda. But a lot of people have similar moments. In a culture that tries to push every woman toward motherhood, it's a really important feeling that Hoda is speaking up about. Because some people have that moment when they are young. Some never have that moment. And others have it when they are in their 40s or 50s.
By Hoda sharing her very personal experience, it sounds like she's encouraging women and people who want to start families to listen to their own voices. That's especially true now more than ever, as norms for when and how to have a baby continue to evolve.
The podcast will feature other celebrities, like Alyssa Milano, Padma Lakshmi, and Tamron Hall. But what's really interesting about it is that it will look at different kinds of motherhood journeys. They'll talk adoption, IVF, single parenthood, same-sex couples, home birth, and more more.
We can't wait to listen.
