Featured Image Credit: Investigation Discovery
Topics: TV And Film, Natalia Grace
Jess Hardiman
Natalia Grace’s biological mum has opened up about the ‘difficult’ birth and what led to her adoption, saying she regrets giving her daughter up.
Ukrainian Natalia Grace was adopted by Michael and Kristine Barnett back in 2010, with her new family believing she was a six-year-old child with a rare bone growth disorder.
Over time, it emerged that she actually has a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal and was not a child at all, with a judge determining that she was an adult woman aged 22.
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In new Investigation Discovery documentary, The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, legal expert Beth Karas explains: “The judge had a petition prepared by an attorney that would lay out the arguments for why this person is not the age they believe she is – she is actually an adult.
“Nobody knows quite what age, but she has not grown in four years, so the judge came up with his own little formula: ‘Well, you stop growing at 18 – if she hasn’t grown in four years then she’s at least 18 when she entered their lives. And I’m gonna add four years'.
“He said, ‘Okay, I find you 22'.”
Later in the documentary, we hear from Natalia’s biological mother Anna Gava, who is confirmed to be her parent after providing a DNA test.
Speaking via video link from Ukraine, she recalls her ‘difficult’ childbirth with Natalia, saying she was advised by doctors to give her up for adoption.
She explains: “They showed her to me. The childbirth was difficult as well, very difficult. When I regained consciousness after anaesthesia, the next day the doctor came and said, ‘There is no sense to take her home.’
“They said that she won’t be able to walk at all, and she will be of very short stature.
"They said a surgery would cost $100,000, and since ‘you don’t have such finances’, you also have an older daughter – I already had Julia at the time and Natasha came after her...
“She brought me a sample of the waiver on the paper, and I had to write five copies of it.
“I didn’t initially want to leave her, but the doctors said there is nothing you could do for her.
“’You are so young,’ they said, ‘You are 24 years old. Don’t ruin your life, you will have other children.’”
Anna admits she feels sad that she ‘listened to the doctors and left her instead of keeping her’.
The mother also goes on to share Natalia’s birth date – a topic of contention - and that she herself was born in 1979.
“She was born on September 4th 2003,” she continues.
“She was born at 6.25am in the Maternity Hospital No. 1. She is my biological daughter.”
This means Natalia would be 19-years-old today - well, 19 years, nine months and two days, if we're being exact.
Unpacking Gava’s comments, Karas says: “Anna Gava was born in 1979, which means she would have been 10 years old if Natalia was born in 1989, as the courts ruled when they re-aged her.
“So there aren’t a lot of good reasons, besides seeing pubic hair on her, to believe she was born anytime before 2003.”