Stacy and Frank Parrado first started trying to conceive about five years ago, when they hit a few bumps. After struggling to get pregnant, the couple visited a fertility doctor who informed them that due to the chemotherapy Frank received when he had cancer at 6 years old, they wouldn't be able to have children naturally. Although the couple was completely crushed, they still wanted so badly to be parents, so they decided to start the adoption process. Following all of the paperwork and other beginning steps, the couple was faced with a waiting game, which Today anchor Hoda Kotb knows all too well [1]. Now, just more than a year after adopting her own baby girl, Haley Joy [2], Hoda sat down with the Parrados to inform them that their dreams of becoming parents would be coming true [3] . . . NOW.
The Parrados believed that they would be meeting with Hoda to do an interview about their journey to becoming parents and the adoption process, but little did they know that they had already matched with a baby before heading into the interview with Hoda, and the anchor was about to change their lives forever. After being asked what their waiting process has been like, the couple shared that they've been waiting to be matched for nearly two years.
"What's the hardest part of the wait?" Hoda asked Frank. "There's good days and there's bad days," he said. "There's days where you wonder how much further you can go. Stacy [and I], we push each other through those days."
Stacy added: "Our adoption agency, they said to us when we first went there, 'One of the things to remember: it's not a matter of if you're going to be become parents, it's just a matter of when.' So we know that it's going to happen, and it's going to happen when it's meant to happen for us."
"Well, I think the day," Hoda told them, "is today. I think you've been matched."
Hoda informed the shocked and emotional couple then and there that they had matched with a baby girl [5], and a week later, Addison Emily was home with her mom and dad.
Watch the entire sweet video above to hear more of Stacy and Frank's story (but if, like us, you want to get to the tearjerking reveal, fast-forward to about the three-minute mark), and check out Hoda being moved to tears by the song Kelly Clarkson wrote [6] inspired by her new children's book, I've Loved You Since Forever.