"I just tried to tell myself that it would be OK if it didn't happen."
Savannah Guthrie is opening up about her previous struggles with fertility.
During an interview with Good Housekeeping with her co-host Hoda Kotb, the “Today” show host revealed she had a miscarriage at the age of 41 while trying to conceive a second child.
“I stopped even letting myself hope or believe I could (have a baby), because the years were getting on,” Guthrie admitted. “It wasn’t that I thought it was impossible; I just thought it wasn’t likely.”
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The 50-year-old broadcaster shared that after she had welcomed their daughter Vale, 7, with her husband Michael Feldman, she had experienced a miscarriage and had endured two rounds of IVF treatments.
“I didn’t want to get my hopes up. I just tried to tell myself that it would be OK if it didn’t happen: Maybe it’s not meant for me, and that’s OK because I’ve already been blessed so much in my life. I’m not entitled to have a baby too. Looking back, that mindset was probably a self-defense mechanism,” Savannah added.
Guthrie and her husband were ultimately able to welcome their son Charley, 5. The daytime talk show host credited her mother for getting her through the rough patches in her fertility journey.
“My mom got me through the personal trials of my 30s,” she said. “It was great to have her, because she was just always so certain. She’d say, ‘Well, of course you’re going to have your family, Savannah!’ It felt good.”
“Today” show veteran Hoda also opened up about her family planning journey and how her run-in with breast cancer had impacted her fertility.
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“I remember that my oncologist called and we were talking about freezing my eggs,” she recalled. “She basically said that given my age and [my breast cancer treatment], it was pretty close to a dead end. I was in my room and I just sobbed. I thought, ‘Well, that’s that, isn’t it? Like, you almost blame yourself. Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I do that?’ So I just pushed it away, because the reality seemed impossible to bear. How do you survive knowing you can’t have what you desire and what you feel like you actually physically need?”
Kotb later adopted her two daughters with her ex-fiancé Joel Schiffman, Haley, 5 and Hope, 3.
The television personality also revealed how actress Sandra Bullock had served as a role model for her and how she became a huge influence in her decision to adopt her children.
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“I also read about Sandra Bullock and the children she adopted. I’d always felt a weird connection to her, though I only knew her from the show. But she was my age, and I just thought, ‘Wow, she’s really cool.’ I called her, and we talked,” she continued.
Hoda added, “She said adopting was the most important thing she’d ever done. When I had made the decision to adopt and was on the plane to pick up my [first] daughter, I called her again. She said, ‘It’s about to begin!’ Sometimes all you need is a model before [you realize], I can handle it.”
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