‘Everything is about them being okay, being in school, having what they need, their moments. I need to be there for every single moment they have. It’s harder for me to leave them than I think it is for them when I leave. I don’t leave that much and I don’t work that much anymore either,’ Sandra shared.

‘I keep looking at them going, “I got nothing but you,” and they’re like [noise]. You know, I told them where they can go to college. I said, “These are the places that I feel comfortable living. So you have these choices.”

‘So my priorities are my kids, my kids, my kids. My family. My family. That’s it.’

However, being a parents wasn’t always part of the plan and the actress who is currently promoting her latest movie Oceans 8 detailed that as she entered her forties she started to accept that children might not be part of the plan.

However, when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, all that changed.

‘Katrina happened in New Orleans. And I knew. Like, just something told me that my child was there. It was weird,’ Sandra explained as she fought back tears.

‘Was it a gut feeling or a God feeling?’ Hoda asked to which the actress replied: ‘I think they’re one and the same. I don’t think there’s a difference. I really don’t.

‘And– and it was the process of filling out forms, filling out forms, being judged, being– you know, having– sort of being in the spotlight, you know, about who you are as a human being that is awkward.’

The process of adoption was a long and drawn out one, and Sandra revealed that she had to wait several years to meet her son Louis before finalizing the move in 2010 as she divorced her cheating ex-husband Jessie James.

However the maternal bond was instant, and she also purchased a home in the city’s affluent Garden District so her son could grow up in his hometown.

‘It’s like he had always been there. It’s like he fit in the crook of my arm. He looked me in the eyes and he was just, he was wise. My child was wise.’

Something Hoda, who has adopted a daughter of her own named Haley Joy, could empathize with first hand.

‘Funny what you know in, like, a second,’ the TV host offered before telling Sandra that her adoption journey gave her the confidence to start looking into adoption herself.

Sandra added: ‘I hope me telling my story let people know that there’s no end game.’

‘There are hundreds of thousands of children that are ready to be your child. You’re a forever parent the minute you accept the love of that child,’ Sandra said, tearing up and pausing to speak as her voice caught in her throat.

‘And it’s amazing to me how we can take away people’s happiness by telling them this is the box you have to stay in. There is no box.’

And she also revealed that it was her son Louis who prompted her to adopt her daughter after he told Sandra and a group of her friends that he was going to have a new baby soon.

In late 2015, she adopted a girl named Laila, who was three-and-a-half at the time.

‘Louis has a very strong way, and he’s a fine leader, and he lead me to Lai,’ she added.

And she also told Hoda, who admitted she had ‘chills’ listening to the mother-of-two speak so passionately about her offspring, that she believes becoming a mother was her destiny – ‘not being an actress’.

‘This is my purpose. And I knew it at a very young age.’

The doting mom mostly keeps Louis, now eight, and Laila, six, out of the public eye, which hasn’t been easy. She told InStyle recently, ‘I had to figure out how to hide the kids’ faces because there was a bounty on our heads.

‘When you adopt a child, there’s a placement period, and if something goes sideways, they have the right to take the child away. It’s a tenuous, strenuous six months.

‘We had an allergy scare that sent us to the ER, and we were followed by the paparazzi, so the word was out that I had another child. And everyone wanted photos. It was heartbreaking,’ she went on.

‘Louis would hear a helicopter or drone, and he’d run to get his sister and drag her across the lawn and hide her under the trampoline. So poor Laila had PTSD. But it took the bounty off once we did those official photos.’

She has also been speaking lately about characterizing adopted children as such. When speaking about how many children are in foster care and looking for homes, she got emotional once again.

‘Look: I’m all for Republican, Democrat, whatever, but don’t talk to me about what I can or can’t do with my body until you’ve taken care of every child who doesn’t have a home or is neglected or abused,’ she said.

‘It makes me teary-eyed. Let’s all just refer to these kids as “our kids.” Don’t say “my adopted child.” No one calls their kid their “IVF child” or their “oh, s***, I went to a bar and got knocked-up child.” Let just say, “our children.”