As part of her last week on TODAY, Hoda Kotb surprised a couple with some good news after they had been trying to adopt a baby for years.

After telling Christina Wong and Dean Kahn that there were going to be parents to a baby girl in a previous interview, Hoda met with them Jan. 7 on TODAY with Hoda & Jenna. After meeting their new adopted daughter, Jacqueline, Hoda asked how parenthood was treating them.

“A whirlwind,” Wong gushed.

“It’s been amazing,” Kahn added. “I mean, she’s been everything we hoped for and more. It’s just so surreal, like you think perfect’s not possible and then this happens.”

On the show, Hoda explained that the couple adopted their daughter through the Gladney Center for Adoption in Texas. She called it an “extraordinary place” and Wong agreed.

The new mom of one said that when they handed her daughter to her it felt like “a dream come true.”

“I really wanted to soak it in, but it was overwhelming in every good way possible,” she said. Christina Wong and Dean Kahn with their new baby girl on TODAY With Hoda & Jenna.TODAY
In a previous interview with Hoda, Wong and Kahn explained why adopting a child is so important to them.

“Not only would that provide an opportunity to build our family, but we could help a birth mother and a child in need, and make a societal contribution in addition to helping our family,” he said. “And we never felt that our ability to love a child would be contingent upon being biologically related.”

Wong added that she “always thought” that being an adoptive mother “would be a nice thing to do.”

“And then as I got older and I met Dean, I realized it could become a reality. And it was just so nice to find someone that aligned with my goals,” she said.

In that interview, Hoda surprised the couple by telling them that they were going to be adoptive parents to a baby girl. She started by sharing her story. Hoda is a proud mom of her two adopted kids, Haley, 7, and Hope, 4.

“I have to say, I remember so vividly when I got the call. It was so magical and amazing when you get a phone call. I remember mine like it was yesterday. The phone rang, and I was in my office, and I answered the phone,” she said.

“And they said, ‘Hoda.’ I said, ‘Yes?’ And she said, ‘It’s a girl.’ And I go, ‘Oh my God, it’s a girl.’ That’s what I thought. And I just want to have the privilege of telling both of you in this moment that it’s a girl. You guys have been matched with a baby,” she continued. Christina Wong started tearing up alongside her husband, Dean Kahn, after she learned she’s going to be a mother.TODAY
At that moment, both Kahn and Wong’s faces lit up with joy. Wong even shed a few tears.

“Oh my God,” Kahn gushed.

“I want to meet her and I want to love her,” Wong added.

Wong and Kahn have been married since 2022. The couple met while researching cancer drugs alongside one another in a chemistry lab.

“It just happened naturally,” Wong says of their connection.

After getting married, the pair started their paperwork for adoption and although they were matched twice with babies, the opportunity fell through both times.

Kahn said they even got to hold a baby they thought they were going to be adopting before their little one was shortly taken away.

“It was hard,” Wong recalls of the moment. “I mean, I was holding her and the birth mom was like, ‘I changed my mind.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I can’t force you to do anything.’”

Kahn added that he “almost fainted” handing the baby back to its mother, but even though it was a rough experience for them both, he said he and Wong are “not here to rip a baby out of anybody’s hands. We want to help. And if, you know, they choose to parent, that’s wonderful.”

Now with their new addition to the family, Kahn and Wong know where they plan to raise their little girl.

“The Colorado suburbs are such a magical place to be a kid,” Kahn told Hoda. “You can kind of ride your bike everywhere, and it’s safe, and go play with your friends, and go frolic in the mountains. So I think it’s just a wonderful, magical place to kind of be free and explore. And we’d like to give our child the space to become who they want to be and not who we expect them to be.”