Hoda Kotb is feeling extra appreciative this National Nurses Week.
While paying tribute to healthcare workers, the Today co-anchor recalled an exchange with a nurse that "meant everything" amid her 3-year-old daughter Hope's hospital stay earlier this year.
"It was 3 a.m., and I was just sitting in this chair," Hoda explained on Today on May 8. "This nurse walked in and—I still remember—put her hand on my back. Didn't even say anything. Just sat there for a minute."
The journalist—who shares Hope and 6-year-old Haley with former fiancé Joel Schiffman—was absent from the morning news show for two weeks back in February after her youngest daughter was admitted to the hospital. During her quiet moment with the nurse, Hoda revealed she had a simple request for Hope.
"I asked for a bath," the 58-year-old remembered saying. "I wanted to give her a bath, and they could only sponge her, and I said, 'Please, I'm begging you.'"
With tears in her eyes, Hoda shared that she just wanted to be able to "bathe her child," as she pleaded for a way to accomplish that.
"We got this little plastic thing, and we put it in the shower and put Hope in it," she continued. "And I remembered like that tiny thing, but it was everything at that time."
This isn't the first time Hoda has opened up about the impact Hope's nurses had on their family amid her week-long hospital stay.
"When your child is ill, the amount of gratitude you can have for people who helped you out," she told co-anchor Savannah Guthrie upon returning to Today in March. "So, I'm grateful for the doctors at Weill Cornell, who were amazing, and the nurses."
The Today mainstay also expressed a note of appreciation for her support system during this scary time.
"And I'm grateful to my family and I'm grateful to friends like you, who were there every single day," she continued. "So, I want to say thank you for that. I love you."
(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)