Missed Flight Changes 3 Lives: Woman Adopts Fellow Passenger's baby

RALEIGH, N.C. (CBSNewYork) - A young woman missed her flight, changing the course of three lives.

There's a strong connection between 25-year-old Samantha Snipes and 42-year-old Temple Phipps, but it all started because of one connection that was missed.

"I missed my flight because I was like, too big to navigate the airport. It was Atlanta, so it was huge," Snipes said.

Young and 8 months pregnant, Snipes missed her connection to Raleigh.

The missed meant sitting next to Temple on a flight.

"She was super excited for me being pregnant and everything," Snipes said.

"So she sits down in the middle seat beside me and she's really nervous and anxious and I asked her why and she starts telling me," Phipps said.

Snipes was considering putting the baby up for adoption because of family problems.

Longing for a child of her own, Temple proposed an idea: She could adopt the baby.

"I thought she could always say no. But if she didn't have a plan, and maybe this was divine, and that's is why I'm supposed to be there," Phipps said.

The two parted ways at the airport. Three days later, Temple got a phone call.

"She said 'It's Samantha from the plane,' and I said 'Is everything OK.' And she said 'I'm still in Raleigh, I had the baby, did you want to come see us,'" Phipps said.

Temple spent hours with Snipes and the baby. It was in those moments that Snipes made the most difficult decision of her life.

"She said 'I wanted to see you with him and I think you should be his mother,'" Phipps said. "And I literally started shaking uncontrollably."

"She already looked like she loved him after holding him for an hour. The stuff that I wasn't feeling she was feeling, and that's what made me decide this was the right thing to do," Snipes said.

Baby Vaughan is 18-months-old now.

Snipes never caught that flight back home, instead starting a new life nearby. And Temple started her life as a new mom.

A missed connection that connected both women for life.

Snipes started a photography company and wrote a blog about her experience, which went viral.

The two women are now considering writing a book together.