Sandra Bullock's emotional interview with Hoda Kotb about adoption will make you cry

Monday morning, Sandra Bullock sat down with Hoda Kotb in an emotional interview for the Today show. Both women have adopted children, and the actress opened up about adopting her first son, Louis, and the role that Hurricane Katrina played. Bullock originally thought that maybe she wouldn’t be a mother, “and then Katrina happened — I’m gonna cry — Katrina happened in New Orleans and I knew, just something told me that my child was there,” she said. And three or four years later, she said, she adopted her baby boy, Louis.

The important advice that Bullock received prior to adopting is something she still holds close to her heart. “The perfect child will find you, you will find your child. … But you don’t believe that when it’s not happening. When you’re going, ‘Where is my family?’ and when it does happen, you know exactly what they’re talking about.”

Bullock recounted how Louis knew she would be adopting another child. He told his mother’s friends that he was “going to have a baby soon.” At that time, Bullock had no plans to adopt another child, but she told Kotb that “maybe he knew something. And when I think about it,” she said, “it would have been around the time that Laila was born.”

Kotb explained how Bullock gave her hope that she too could become a mother to daughter Haley Joy. “I remember I reached out to you, and you gave me some good advice, but I thought, ‘You don’t even know who you inspired.’” The actress responded, “I hope that me telling my story let[s] people know that there’s no end game. There are hundreds of thousands of children that are ready to be your child.” A tearful Bullock continued, “You’re a forever parent the minute you accept the love of that child. And it’s amazing to me how we can take away people’s happiness by telling them this is the box that you have to stay in. There is no box.”

Watch Hoda Kotb and Sandra Bullock’s full interview here: