Luz thought her daughter died in a housefire. Then she met 'Aaliyah' at a kid's birthday party.

Luz Cuevas and Pedro Vera were happy to welcome a child together in 1997. 

The Puerto Rican parents named their daughter Delimar Vera, and began their lives together as a family in Philadelphia. 

But what was supposed to be a fairytale soon turned into a nightmare. 

Fire broke out in their home just 10 days after her birth and it entirely consumed the bedroom where baby Delimar had been sleeping. 

A medical examiner's report found no human tissue in the ashes, and it was ruled that Delimar had been "completely consumed by the fire", per The Guardian. 

However, her mother Luz could never really come to terms with the fact that her child effectively vanished without a trace. 

The cause of the flame was found to be 'faulty wiring', and Luz and Pedro were supposed to simply continue their lives without their bundle of joy. 

The family continued on believing that their daughter was dead for six years. In this time Luz and Pedro separated. 

But then, everything changed. 

Delimar's mother Luz called the moment that she laid eyes on her long-lost daughter again a moment of "blood calling". 

She was at a birthday party, not 15 miles away from the family's home, and was introduced to a child named 'Aaliyah'. 

Luz Cuevas when her daughter had been found. Image: Getty.

Despite the name change, Luz was sure it was her daughter, down to the sweet dimples in her cheeks. 

"I have dimples and all of my siblings have dimples," Delimar, who is now 26, recently told the hosts of UK television programme This Morning. "That was the first give away from her."

Luz was overcome with emotion and so determined that she stole a strand of 'Aaliyah's' hair and took it to the police so that they could conduct a DNA test. 

It was the breakthrough no one saw coming, that no one had even thought to look for. 

The DNA test revealed that Luz's intuition was right, Aaliyah was Delimar. She had been kidnapped. 

Within weeks she was returned to live with her birth parents, Luz and Pedro. 

Delimar and Luz pose alongside the actors that played them in a Lifetime movie. Image: Getty.

For six years, Delimar had lived with a woman she believed to be her mother. Her name was Carolyn Correa, a single-mum who worked at a local pharmacy in New Jersey, 15 miles from Delimar's true home in Philadelphia. 

She told The Guardian that Carolyn had often been absent working long hours and that she fears her trauma blocked out a lot of this period of her life. 

"Surprisingly, out of everybody in the family, Carolyn is the one I remember least," she said. 

When the kidnapping was uncovered, Correa was sent to prison for the crime.

The sensational nature of the story made Delimar's life momentarily exciting - with cameras and gifts and a lot of attention. 

But as it went away, the difficulty of being stolen from her family began to rear its ugly head. 

She talks about her experience in the upcoming Fremantle documentary The Hand That Robbed The Cradle. 

For years Delimar and Luz were estranged. Image: Instagram.

"They said: 'She's back, it's done, we have a happy ending... I didn't know who to be," Delimar said. 

"I tried to pick my 'new' family's mannerisms, to make it seem like I was never kidnapped, but I was also mourning my old family. When I was a child, I felt like I had two moms. It wasn't until I was 11 or 12 years old that the reality finally set in."

Delimar continued to struggle with what she had been through, going to live with her father for a time before ending up in a group home at age 15. 

" By the time I was 12, my mum and I were really butting heads. I'd really begun to process all this – that I was kidnapped, that it really happened. I was a very, very angry person. I had my teenage hormones too. I didn't feel there was anyone I could talk to," she told The Guardian.

It took until the age of 20 for her to really sort through those feelings. 

"For a long time, I felt unworthy, undeserving of certain things," she told The Guardian, "You really come to realise that not everybody is going to feel as bad for you as you do for yourself.

"You have to accept that and do better."

Delimar and her husband Isaiah on their wedding day. Image: Instagram

Six years on from this healing period, Delimar has married her husband Isaiah and now has an 11-year-old step-son. 

She is still living in Philadelphia, and has never wanted to know why she became a victim of kidnapping and how it all unfolded. 

"I don't feel like I need to sit down and have that conversation with [Correa] because I learned a lot of things about Carolyn and how her mind works, and I don't know if it is going to be the truth," she told the hosts of This Morning. 

She now speaks to her birth mother and father weekly. It was her husband who encouraged her to reach out and heal those bonds.

"My dad lives in Puerto Rico but he calls me and we'll chat for an hour. My mum and I talk multiple times a week. We spend holidays together. My brothers are my best friends," she said. 

Feature image: Getty.