Hoda Kotb Recalls Begging to Bathe Daughter Hope During Hospitalization

The 3-year-old was hospitalized in February after suffering a 'health issue.'

Hoda Kotb is looking back on her daughter, Hope's, scary time in the hospital.

On Monday's episode of Today, Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager kicked off National Nurses Week by reflecting on their experiences with nurses in the hospital, most notably Kotb's time in the ICU with Hope and her subsequent hospitalization.

"I was just thinking about when Hope was in the hospital for one of those days and I was sitting -- it was 3 a.m., and I was just sitting in this chair. I was just in this room in a chair by myself, thinking about, like, what's going on here," Kotb, who is also mom to daughter, Haley, 6, recalled.

She continued, "And this nurse walked in, put her hand on my back, didn't even say anything, just sat there for a minute. I was like, 'Oh my God.'"

"I could feel myself, like, right at the time," she added before Bush Hager chimed in, calling the nurse "an angel." 

"They knew at that moment," Kotb continued of the nurse who comforted her. "Because a lot of what they do isn't about giving the IV and the needles and the stuff and the tests and all those things. It's more than that. It's everything that they do."

It was an especially trying time for Kotb and her family, with the TV personality spending several weeks away from the show while caring for the 3-year-old, who was suffering from a "health issue." Amid the difficulties and long hospital, Kotb was searching for some normalcy -- something as simple as being able to give her daughter a bath.

"I remember I was there, and I asked for a bath," Kotb shared. "I wanted to give her a bath and they could only sponge her and I said, 'Please, I'm begging you, I just want a bath for my child.' And I remember they got this little plastic thing, and they put it in the shower and put Hope in it and I remembered, like, that tiny thing, but it was everything at the time. It was beautiful."

While Kotb never revealed Hope's diagnosis, upon explaining her absence to Today viewers back in March, the mother of two did share that the 3-year-old was "vibrant" and on the mend after returning home following her time in the hospital.

"Little Hope had to go to the hospital and she was in the ICU for a few days and then in the hospital for another week and it was really scary," Kotb shared at the time. "She's vibrant and brilliant. She's home. She's home. She's home. I'm over the moon that she's home."

RELATED CONTENT:

 

Latest News