Couple "out of options" finds kidney donor on Craigslist

Update:After months of testing, 49-year-old Glenn Calderbank was prepared to donate his kidney to 33-year-old Nina Saria. The surgery began Tuesday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania but was not completed. A hospital spokeswoman told "CBS This Morning" in a statement: "Due to unforeseen medical issues, the kidney transplant did not occur as planned...Both patients are in good condition." Nina and her family will continue their search for a donor. The family has created a dedicated email address for those looking to help: akidney4nina@yahoo.com.

A woman is undergoing surgery after finding a kidney donor through an unlikely medium.

Glenn Calderbank and Nina Saria connected through an ad on Craigslist months ago. They spoke to CBS News' Jamie Wax about their remarkable, chance encounter.

"I wanted to be able to see my child grow. I wanted to see him in the future," said Saria. "I didn't want to die."

In July 2014, then 31-year-old Nina Saria faced an unsettling reality. An autoimmune disease had caused her kidneys to fail and she needed dialysis.

The debilitating and painful process meant hours in the clinic each week, making it hard for her to be there for her young son, Nicholas.

"When my son begs me, 'Can you come to school to see me read the book?' and my answer is, 'No I can't do that because I have dialysis I have to go,' it's really difficult," Saria said.

Saria added her name to a waiting list for a kidney transplant. After a year of watching his wife suffer, her husband Kay took a different approach - placing an ad on Craigslist.

"I ran out of options. I didn't know what to do," said Kay. "I just wanted a kidney for my wife and I wanted to help her and make her life normal again."

The ad, titled "Looking for a Brave Person," mistakenly ended up in the "Building Materials" section, catching the eye of contractor Glenn Calderbank, who lived just 45 minutes away.

"Curiosity at first - here I am in between marble and pavers," said Calderbank. "When I read the ad... asking for a kidney to save someone's life, it stared at me and I knew, I knew I was a match from the second I saw that. It was there for me and I'm going to have to blame Jessica for that."

Jessica is Calderbank's first wife, who shared a remarkably similar story. In 2004, she also suffered kidney failure and went on dialysis while raising her young son.

After more than a year waiting for a transplant, Calderbank, too, looked for alternatives.

"I got fed up and I put an ad in the local newspaper," Calderbank said.

He got a few offers, but says the hospital balked at taking a donation from a stranger. Eventually, Jessica received a kidney from a donor who had died, but her body rejected the organ.

"The years of dialysis and the transplants, then dialysis... she really wasn't viable for another transplant," Calderbank said. "In 2011 she passed away."

Calderbank says it was Jessica - his angel now - who led him to the Saria family.

"I remember once when she was in the hospital, I said, 'If I could be there instead of you, I would,' Calderbank said. "She's probably laughing and saying, 'here's your chance.'"

"There's no word for me to express how thankful I am," Saria said. "The only thing I can say is God sees it all and I'll never be able to repay him back but I think it's God's will."

Saria plans to honor Calderbank and his gift by being the best mother she can, and she already has plans to pay it forward.

If everything goes well with the surgery, Saria plans to head back to school in January to become a dialysis nurse.