Hoda Koch, Haley Joy, Hope Catherine, and Hope Catherine are their mothers. Today Show Anchor has been honest about her struggles with adopting a third child along with her fiance. Joel Schiffman. Kotb was born long before she had her daughters, and Schiffman proposed. “terrified” to tell him that she wanted to become a mother – with or without him.
Hoda Kotb reveals the first steps of the motherhood journey in a new podcast.
In a recent interview, The new People podcast Me becoming a mom, Hoda Kotb revealed that she was willing to leave her fiance, then-boyfriend, Joel Schiffman, if he couldn’t get on board with her desire for children. The mother of two admitted that she was a bit numb. “terrified,” but determined to set out on the journey to motherhood on her own if Schiffman decided he couldn’t support her dream.
You can do it with or without him.
“I was terrified,” Kotb recalled that he brought up the topic of adoption to Schiffman. “‘How am I going to say this?’ I don’t know his reaction. I think what I was probably the most scared of was that I knew I was going to do it anyway.”She admitted that she was sorry. “My heart was pounding.”She was all “sweaty” When she first approached Schiffman about adopting a child,
“I said to him, ‘Joel, I have to ask you something. I haven’t been sleeping well lately because it’s been weighing on me, and I can’t carry it anymore. So I will say something to you, and I don’t want you to answer me right now. I was hoping you could sit with it and take your time. Don’t answer. Just take a week, take as long as you need,’” Kotb remembered. She continued, clearly expressing discomfort at the news to Schiffman. “He was like, ‘What is she going to tell me?’”
Despite her initial hemming and hawing, when it came time to get to the heart of the matter, that’s precisely what Kotb did. “I looked him in the eye, and I said, ‘I would like to explore adoption with you.’” To say that without knowing what his answer would be, we can’t imagine the courage it must have taken for Kotb to admit precisely what was on her heart.
Despite being afraid, she managed to be honest about her desires. She continued, “There was like a second in there, I was like, ‘This is the end of a relationship or the beginning of a family.’”
It is good that today, the star didn’t have to wait long for Schiffman’s answer. “My heart was pounding, and he just looked at me, and he said, ‘I don’t need a week,’” Kotb spoke. “At that moment, I fell on his chest and was sobbing. He said, ‘I didn’t know you were carrying that.’”
That’s When She Knew ‘I Chose Right’
She said that she knew that that was the moment she had made the right decision in choosing a partner. “because it was the thing that would make me the happiest on earth…I said, ‘I chose right. I chose a man who chose my happiness over his convenience maybe at that moment.’”
Kotb and Schiffman now have daughters Haley, Hope and they are proud parents. However, the coronavirus pandemic has delayed the adoption process. They are still happy with their beautiful little girls, who are their greatest joy.
