'Adopted child' Natalia Grace's biological mom claims her daughter was actually ... trends now

The biological mother of an adopted Ukrainian dwarf accused of pretending to be a child has again claimed her daughter is actually 19 years old, and therefore was a young girl when she taken in by an American family.

Natalia Grace's age has been the subject of fervent debate after she was adopted in April 2010 by a family who believed she was a six-year-old girl at the time.

But Michael and Kristina Barnett came to suspect she was not as young as they believed, and in 2011 moved her into a separate Indiana apartment.

In 2012, the couple - saying Natalia was an adult 'sociopath' masquerading as a child - petitioned a judge to have Natalia legally re-aged, and when it was granted the then-eight-year-old became 22 overnight.

However, Natalia's biological mother Anna Gava, who is confirmed to be her parent after providing a DNA test, has revealed Natalia's 'true' age in a new documentary from Investigation Discovery, 'The Curious Case of Natalia Grace'.

Speaking to the documentary makers via video link from Ukraine - three years after proving she is the biological mother to Grace - she is heard explaining how she herself was born in 1979. 

Gava's own age raises questions over Natalia's re-aging, in which a judge ruled she was born in 1989. This would mean Gava would have been 10 when she had Natalia.

Gava then reveals her daughter's date of birth.

'She was born on September 4 2003,' Gava says. 'She was born at 6.25am in the Maternity Hospital No. 1. She is my biological daughter.'

This would mean that Natalia would be 19 years old today, and therefore was indeed a young child when she was adopted by the Barnetts in 2010. 

Gava's appearance in the documentary comes almost four years after DailyMail.com tracked her down in 2019 to the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv. Then, she said the same thing: That her daughter is indeed still a teenager.

Speaking at the time, she said her daughter was 16. 

'I know exactly how old she is,' Gava told DailyMailTV through a translator from her home in the southern Ukrainian city near the Black Sea.

'This girl is my daughter who was born 16 years ago.'

It was not immediately clear if Gava's comments would result in the court revisiting its decision to de-age Natalia, or to drop charges against the Barnetts. 

In the new documentary, Gava also goes into detail about how Natalia - who has a form of dwarfism called spondyloepiphyseal - was put up for adoption.

She says in the documentary: 'They showed her to me. The childbirth was difficult as well, very difficult. When I regained consciousness after anesthesia, 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.'

Last week, former prosecutor Beth Karas told DailyMail.com the process used to decide Natalia's age left her feeling 'something just wasn't right about this case.' 

The attorney said Natalia was never represented in court and was left uninformed over the process, which she argued should raise doubt over its accuracy.

Karas also appears in new documentary, where she alleged that Natalia's disturbing behavior may have motivated her adoptive parents, Michael and Kristine Barnett, to use any means necessary to rid themselves of her.

'Getting her re-aged as an adult could have been a way for Michael and Kristine to protect themselves from child neglect charges,' she said in the

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