Hoda Kotb on Her Emotional Journey to Welcoming Baby Haley Joy

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After receiving treatment for breast cancer, Kotb was left unable to conceive, which was difficult for her to accept as she had always wanted to have children.

"One of the things in my life I've always wanted was to be a mom," she explained. "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."

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"There was a hole," Kotb said. "People would say, 'Oh, do you have kids?' And I'd feel like, 'Ouch.' I knew inside it was supposed to be for me."

"Finally I said to myself one day, 'Why can't I? Why not me?' I had this ache in me that I couldn't push away anymore."

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Last year, Kotb moved in with her boyfriend, 58-year-old financier Joel Schiffman, and brought up the idea of adoption.

"I was afraid to even say it out loud, because then it felt so real," she recalled. "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."

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Kotb shared that while she left Schiffman's name off the adoption process to simplify things, "Haley will call him Dad."

The baby girl was born on Valentine's Day, and Kotb is taking time off from the Today show to be with her daughter as much as she can.

"I wake up sometimes and go, 'Oh my God, I have a baby!' " she said. "But it feels totally real. 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."

"It's one of those things where you think you've done it all, you think you've felt it all," she added. "But I just didn't know that this kind of love existed."