Tamron Hall talks becoming a mother at 48 and her new show
Since leaving morning TV over two years ago, Tamron Hall is embracing three big things in her life: a new baby, new husband and launching a new show.
Hall, who married music manager Steven Greener, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Moses, at age 48 last month after years of trying to conceive.
She spoke about motherhood and keeping her high-risk pregnancy private on "Good Morning America" on Thursday.
"My doctor, who was amazing, at the time said we need to wait -- we want to take our time and make sure that everything is going in the right direction," she said on her decision to not immediately share her pregnancy news.
"I wanted to share the news, but I didn't want -- honestly I didn't want -- if it did not work out I don't think I was mentally prepared to tell people," she continued. "I had had other failed rounds of IVF and you tell your friends, 'Okay, this is it. This is it.' And it doesn't happen and I wasn't, honestly I don't know if I was strong enough, to be able to share the sad news."
She said her intentions behind keeping her pregnancy private were often misconstrued.
"People mistake privacy for secrecy and I wasn't keeping a secret," she said. "I just so desperately wanted it to work out."
I just so desperately wanted it to work out.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE for the magazine's June 2019 cover story, Hall spoke more about her constant fears while carrying Moses.
“I knew that the clock was not on my side,” she said. "When I tried in my 30s, I still felt like I had some time, and the fertility clinic felt like a bright room. In my 40s I saw all the gray: The faces looked gray, the walls were gray, nothing seemed shiny and optimistic.”
Despite her failed rounds of IVF, she was determined to keep trying.
When Hall finally announced her pregnancy, she said she wanted to 'own' the moment.
"When the happy news came, it was in 'Baby Shark' version that I announced my pregnancy," she said on "GMA." "I was at home and I had been hearing that song, and I'm like I'm owning this. I'm owning this moment."
Aside from blissfully spending time with Moses, who is now 4-weeks old, Hall has a huge project, her own show, the "Tamron Hall Show," coming in just a few months.
"This is my first time on live television in 2 1/2 years, and when I left my last job, there's a photo of me leaving walking across I think 5th Avenue, and I look at that picture and I was just in a fog."
She said that after constantly working since she was just 14 years old, she didn't know what was next for the first time.
"I had no idea. I had not started dating Steven and not thought about going through this journey to eventually have Moses. I just knew that everything that I was comfortable with was gone, and in the end, I had to in a sense lose what was the most important thing to me," she shared on leaving her role at NBC.
Suddenly you're not the person they want, and I had to look myself in the mirror and say, 'But am I still Tamron? If there's no name beneath my card, if it doesn't say a show, if it doesn't say journalist, am I still Tamron?' And I decided I'm still Tamron.
Hall, the granddaughter of a "sharecropper with a second grade education," said she has always been the underdog.
"I was never the person that people would root for. I was the underdog," she said. "My story was supposed to already have been told, and there I was losing something that I had poured my entire life in."
"Suddenly you're not the person they want, and I had to look myself in the mirror and say, 'But am I still Tamron? If there's no name beneath my card, if it doesn't say a show, if it doesn't say journalist, am I still Tamron?' And I decided I'm still Tamron," she said.
Hall wants her story and perseverance to convince others not to give up as well. She plans to share inspiring stories on the "Tamron Hall Show."
"One of my fondest memories, I went to Carroll Peak Elementary School in Fort Worth, Texas, second grade, I remember showing up the day after watching "Rocky" ... and I was crying," she said.
"In the second grade, having an emotional reaction to the movie "Rocky" because that sensation of getting up and believing that I'm on the map, but I don't have to stay there -- so we want people on this show to talk about that," she added.
"Tamron Hall Show" premieres on September 9, 2019.