Hoda Kotb's Past Views on Adoption as She Welcomes Baby Number Two

The "Today" show co-anchor's journey to both first- and second-time motherhood is a moving one.

In February 2017, Hoda Kotb, 54, adopted a baby girl named Haley Joy Kotb. Recently, she came on the "Today Show" via phone to announce she had adopted another baby girl named Hope Catherine Kotb.

“I wake up sometimes and go, ‘Oh my God, I have a baby!’ But it feels totally real."

Hoda was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was 42 years of age. Sadly, she came out of treatment unable to conceive.

In a 2017 interview with PEOPLE, the broadcast journalist revealed that she thought she would never be a mother.

“Sometimes in your life, things just don’t work out for whatever reason, so you say, ‘Well, I wasn’t meant to have that.’ But it was really hard to come to terms with it,” Hoda said.

In 2016, she decided to bring up the topic of adoption to her longtime partner Joel Schiffman, 61.

“I was afraid to even say it out loud, because then it felt so real. I said, ‘Think about it for a day or a week or whatever.’ And he said, ‘I don’t need a day. Let’s get this journey going.’ At that point I blubbered like a baby. It was like the dam burst," Hoda told PEOPLE.

She then worked with an authorized New York adoption agency. Within a matter of months, she settled her adoption of Haley.

At the point when Hoda held Haley for the first time, she said that “It was like a puzzle piece that just snapped in. I felt it," adding, “It was as if she had been with me forever.”

“I wake up sometimes and go, ‘Oh my God, I have a baby!’ But it feels totally real," she continued. "I guess if you’ve been waiting this long for something and you wish for it, pray for it, hope for it, wonder if it will ever be, and then it happens, nothing’s more real. Nothing.”

Expressing her love for Haley, Hoda wrote a book titled "I've Loved You Since Forever." According to her, the book "is a celebratory and poetic testament to the timeless love felt between parent and child."