Savannah recalls the first thing she learned after becoming a mom in her 40s

For Savannah Guthrie, becoming a mom at 42 was filled with surprises; the biggest being how it chipped away at her “hard exterior.”

In a wide-ranging conversation with Hoda Kotb, Savannah revealed that she was afraid to be vulnerable before having kids.

“We had our kids late. You know, you go through life, you have your ups and downs, your heart breaks a few dozen times. You get some scar tissue,” Savannah said on the Feb. 21 episode of “Making Space with Hoda Kotb” podcast. 

But then daughter Vale, 9, and son Charley, 7, came along and cracked Savannah’s heart wide open.

“I was so totally vulnerable to them,” Savannah said. “Because I knew … if anything happened to them, I would not be OK. I wouldn’t be OK. And it was terrifying,” she said. “I was totally terrified by my vulnerability. So that was the first thing I learned from being a mom.”

Savannah Guthrie and husband Michael Feldman with their daughter Vale and son Charley.@savannahguthrie via Instagram

Savannah and Hoda often bond about their nonlinear paths to parenthood. Savannah experienced a miscarriage and went through multiple rounds of IVF before getting pregnant. Hoda became a mother at 52 in 2017 when she adopted her daughter Haley. In 2019, Hoda adopted her daughter Hope.

There was a period where Savannah feared she would never get married and have children.

“The older I got, when that kept not happening for me, I was heartbroken for a lot of years,” Savannah told Hoda during a conversation on TODAY in 2018.

“You work in a job like ours and it’s so public, people think, ‘Oh, my gosh, that must have been the thing that you focused on your whole life. That must be your dream. That must have been the only thing you worked for,’” she continued. “In the end, all I ever wanted was just to have a family.”

Savannah and husband Michael Feldman tied the knot in 2014 and welcomed Vale that same year. Charley was born in 2016.