Jenna Bush Hager On Being A Mother Before Her Twin Sister: ‘Painful Is The Right Word’

Jenna Bush Hager recently spoke on how having children before her twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, was “painful.”

On the latest episode “Making Space with Hoda Kotb,” Hoda’s co-host Jenna spoke on how having kids before her twin sister was terribly difficult at times.

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Jenna, 39, revealed how she and Barbara were always in sync, as there was never an age difference.

“We had a really shared history because we were the same age,” Jenna recalled of growing up in the White House with her sister. “So it’s interesting how adulthood happens and how I just met Henry and that she didn’t meet somebody, you know, she had a lot of boyfriends. And people always asked about it.”

Jenna, who has children Mila, 8, Poppy, 6, and Hal, 2, said having kids before her sister created a “painful” situation when the two were together.

“I mean, it was kind of disheartening to travel with her and people would say like, ‘Why aren’t you married?’ I mean, painful is the right word,” she said. “One of the things that people assume too is, like, why hadn’t she had kids?”

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Jenna recalled how it was their 92-year-old grandmother who pushed Barbara to take motherhood into her own hands.

“Barbara actually had decided…before my grandmother died, she had a conversation with my grandmother where she had decided to have kids on her own, and she talked to my grandmother about it,” Jenna said. “My grandmother said, ‘I think that’s a really good idea.’ So Barbara froze her eggs and was planning, if she didn’t meet somebody, to go ahead and do it, and then hopefully meet somebody else.”

But she didn’t have to. On September 27, Barbara welcomed her first baby, Cora Georgia, with her husband Craig Coyne. The pair welcomed their daughter just two years after they married in a private ceremony in Kennebunkport, Maine.

“Dearest Cora Georgia,” Jenna wrote to Instagram “Today is the day I got to meet my most beautiful, precious, feisty, niece (a bit earlier than we expected!) I witnessed in awe as my dearest, toughest @barbara.p.bush became a mama. And today is the day I fell in love! Some cousins are anxiously waiting to play with you, but not just yet love. Xx auntie j”