MySpace Enables Mom and Daughter Reunion
Fifteen years ago, Stephanie Lovatos' two-year-old daughter, Celina Aquirie, disappeared with Celina's father.Lovatos says she never stopped searching...
Fifteen years ago, Stephanie Lovatos’ two-year-old daughter, Celina Aquirie, disappeared with Celina’s father.Lovatos says she never stopped searching for Celina, but it wasn’t until late last month that she found her, through a popular teen Web site, MySpace.com.
The site is frequently in the news as a place where child predators try to find victims, but the case of Lovatos and Celina is very different.
The two had an emotional reunion Friday night at San Francisco International Airport.
“It’s been an amazing time for me,” Celina told The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen Wednesday. “I never thought this day would happen, and it’s just wonderful to be sitting next to her right now.”
Earlier, Lovatos told CBS News, “The clock couldn’t move fast enough,” in the airport, as she awaited Celina’s arrival. “I was going toward the gate, looking, watching the clock. They were the longest minutes of my life. Then, I started feeling the reaction. … ‘Oh, my God.’ I was never so terrified. I was hyperventilating. I was a wreck.”
Lovatos gave birth to Celina in Maui, Hawaii in May of 1989. She had shared custody with her boyfriend, but left him for a new life in California in 1991, taking Celina with her.
When Lovatos couldn’t find a home she considered suitable for her and the toddler, she asked the boyfriend in Maui to care for Celina temporarily.
The boyfriend and his new wife left Maui, without telling Lovatos. It turned out that they moved to Florida, and told Celina the boyfriend’s wife was her mother.
It was only when Celina stumbled on her birth certificate when she was 13 that she learned the truth.
All that time, says Lovatos, she was desperately trying to find her daughter.
“Back then, obviously, there was no Internet or anything like that,” she told Chen. “So, I first tried to get legal advice, and that’s when I was notified that neither of us had actual legal custody of her and, because of that, there was nothing (police) could do. I was just told that my best bet was just to find them on my own, and then I could, you know, obviously, try for my custody then.”
She never married, had three other children, earned a master’s degree in business, bought a home in San Jose, Calif., and is a project manager for a construction company.
Then, out of the blue, a brainstorm hit Lovatos: Why not use MySpace?
She had someone create a page for her in February and, in the area asking whom she’d like to meet, she put Celina’s name, saying: “If you ever see this, I have not seen you since you were two. I have been looking for you all this time. Get a hold of me. I have important information to tell you.”
On June 14, Lovatos got a call from a long-lost cousin, which made Lovatos realize she could access the MySpace search functionality.
Within minutes, Lovatos had found Celina’s page.
“I kept thinking,” Lovatos says, “twenty minutes on a … Web site, after 15 years of phone calls and searching,” is what it took.
Ironically, Celina says she doesn’t go on MySpace, and her boyfriend had created the page for her.
It took some phone calls and the intervention of that boyfriend and Lovatos’ best friend to finally hook them up but, when it happened, 15 years of anxiety came to an end.
“I said Celina, ‘This is Mom,” Lovatos recalls. “I started to choke up, and said, ‘Look, hear me out, don’t hang up. I just you need to know, I never abandoned you. You were taken from me, no one has ever let me know where you are. The past 15 years, I’ve never given up. I’ve looked for you. I love you and miss you.”
Celina says she’s note sure whether she’ll stay in California with Lovatos or return to Florida and her father.
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