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Hoda Kotb’s got her another sweetpea and she’s as happy as can be!
The Today show co-anchor is a mommy again after adopting her second daughter, named Hope Catherine Kotb, she announced on Tuesday’s episode, via phone, PEOPLE reports.
“It’s a girl! And her name is Hope!” Kotb, 54, she said with excitement.
—Man charged with allegedly leaving 1-year-old in the back seat of his burning vehicle—
Kotb was beaming in a photo, embracing her new baby along with her 2-year-old daughter Haley Joy bearing a big smile.
“Congratulations are in order for @hodakotb, who adopted a second little girl, Hope Catherine, this week. ?,” The Today Show wrote on its Instagram account.
On Monday, Kotb teased a bit about her upcoming addition when she shared a photo with the words “CHOOSE HOPE” over a cloudy sky.
“How’s Haley liking having a little sis? How’s she doing? Is she helping?” asked Savannah Guthrie.
“This morning at breakfast, she was trying to feed her her raspberries and I was like, ‘Not yet, babe,’ ” shared Kotb.
Kotb said: “She was literally marching around saying, ‘I’m a big sister!’ ” — so much so that “she did try to crawl into [Hope’s] bassinet.”
Kotb’s, mom to Haley Joy, thought her heart was already “full” but her newest bundle of joy has shown her she has much more love to give.
“Joel and I were standing there when they hand you the baby — and it’s the closest thing to a live birth I think you’ll ever see — [and] in that moment I was like, ‘My God.’ My heart just grew 10 times, it’s amazing,” she said about her experience with her boyfriend Joel Schiffman. “I just can’t believe it’s happening, y’all. I can’t.”
When Haley first met her sister, Kotb explained: “We’d been telling her, ‘Baby Hope’s coming,’ and she literally walked up to her and looked at her and she goes, ‘Hope!’”
“You hope, you pray, you dream about things, and we thought about Hope,” Kotb said. “And we named her middle name Catherine after my best friend Karen, her daughter — I think you guys know that her husband passed a little while ago, and Catherine is so super strong.”
While Kotb welcomed her first adopted baby in 2017 and previously said she wasn’t sure if she and Schiffman, 61 would be ready anytime soon for baby number two.
“We don’t know when, but it is something that is important to me and to Joel,” she revealed. “We like the idea of Haley [having] a sibling because she has had such interesting circumstances to grow up. So it would be nice to be able to share it with somebody.”
Here’s to motherhood Hoda!