'GMA's' Home for the Holidays: Sisters Get Gift of Each Other for Christmas
"GMA" helped two sisters spend Christmas together.
— -- Two sisters who are best friends got the best gift ever -- each other -- for the holidays after believing they wouldn't be able to be together for Christmas.
For Liz Welker, 30, family is everything, so it was a painful decision to move across the country to State College, Pa., so her husband, Adam, could pursue a graduate degree.
The studies mean the Welkers didn't have the finances to fly home to Utah so Liz could see her sister, Samantha Spendlove, 27, and her family.
The separation was even more painful because the sisters were both pregnant and were due three months apart. There were constant phone calls between the two.
"We did a lot of Skyping. A lot of, like, 'Show me your belly, I'll show you my belly,'" Welker said.
On March 19 -- the day Welker was set to be induced -- her sister went into early labor.
"I've never been more scared in my life. I hung up the phone. I didn't know what else to do but just drop to my knees on the bathroom floor and pray to God for her and for him," Welker said of Samantha and her unborn son. "And then I had to get up and go to the hospital and have my own baby and think about her and worry about her."
She described being halfway across the country as "a nightmare."
The babies -- Welker's second child, daughter Willa, and Spendlove's first child, son Chance -- were born on the same day.
Chance was in critical condition, but after months of intensive care, he was thriving and home in time for his first Christmas.
This would be Welker's first Christmas without her family -- or so she thought.
Liz wrote into "GMA's" Home for the Holidays contest. She thought she was a finalist -- but had no idea that "GMA"'s Sara Haines was about to tell her she was going home for the holidays after all.
The news was met with tears of happiness. Welker told Haines that she'd been sad for months about not being able to go home.
The upcoming reunion was to be a surprise from Welker, so there was lots of planning to be done. Welker's brother, Jeremy Nef, was brought in on the secret, and everyone hatched a plan to get the entire family together at Spendlove's house for her sister's surprise arrival.
On Dec. 20 in Nibley, Utah,, Cameron Mathison of "GMA" was on hand to watch the surprise unfold. An unsuspecting Spendlove was bemused when she saw him.
"What the heck is happening?" she said.
"I'm with 'Good Morning America' and we have a huge Christmas surprise for you. A Christmas present you will not forget. But you need to get your coats on and come outside," he said.
Spendlove put on her coat, went outside and saw her sister. There were hugs and tears all around, and when Mathison asked Spendlove what it meant for her to be able to introduce Chance to Willa, she replied: "It's everything. We know they must have some kind of special connection to have come on the same day, because what are the chances of that? A week late, and three months early."
Welker told Haines that she didn't think it was a coincidence that Willa and Chance were born on the same day.
"Sometimes I think that Chance's plan ... whoever knows what Chance might experience in this life, but he'll always have Willa. And Willa will always have him," she said.
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