For decades, Azita Milanian would wonder what happened to the boy after he recovered at a Pasadena hospital and was put up for adoption. This week, 20 years to the date of when she found him, the two were reunited.
"I was waiting for you for 20 years," a tearful Milanian said as she hugged Matthew Whitaker.
It was a reunion that came about in an unlikely way. The mother of one of Whitaker's friends wrote into the KIIS 102.7 FM radio station explaining Whitaker's story and asking for a 23andMe DNA kit so he could learn more about his ancestry.
Whitaker agreed to take the test and have the results revealed during the "On Air with Ryan Seacrest" program. When one of the show's producers, Patty Rodriguez, read a 1998 Los Angeles Times story of Milanian finding him, she decided to try to reunite them.
Ahead of the program's taping Wednesday morning, Milanian waited anxiously in a nearby room, with a bag filled with clothes that she had brought for Whitaker. In the bag was a card, with an envelope reading, "Happy Birthday! Baby Christian Mountain Angel Mathew."
When Milanian walked into the studio and saw Whitaker, she began to cry, sobbing into his shirt as he hugged her and called her an angel.
"Finally, all my dreams came true," Milanian said. Many in the studio cried.
On the program, Milanian shared the story of how she found Whitaker on a Saturday night when she had been invited to go dancing, but decided instead to go running.
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