Diksha Sundriyal
Hulu’s ‘Good American Family’ follows the complicated story of Natalia Grace, who is adopted by Kristine Barnett and Michael Barnett, believing that she has found her forever home. However, the story takes a drastic turn when her age is changed from around 10-22, and she is abandoned to live by herself in an apartment in Indiana while the Barnetts move to Canada. Over the course of the show, we follow the conflicting narratives of the Barnetts, who see Natalia as the monster who tried to kill them all, and Natalia, who is robbed of her childhood because of the seemingly baseless claims made by her adoptive parents. In all of this, Natalia’s birth parents are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the identity of her birth mother does not come to light until Natalia takes the Barnetts to court over abuse allegations.
Anna Gava Was Advised to Give Up Natalia Due to Her Special Needs
Anna Volodymyrivna Gava was born in Latvia on April 20, 1979, with a twin named Tatyana. Later, she moved to Ukraine, where she met and married a man named Vadik, with whom she had two daughters, Yulia and Natalia. The couple split up before Natalia was born. While Yulia was a normal child, there were certain complications when Natalia was born. Anna revealed that she gave birth to her second child on September 4, 2003, at around 6:25 am. Prior to this, she had had an ultrasound in which the doctors revealed that the child would be born disabled, and there was no way to change that. After the delivery, the doctors told her that the child had “complex pathology.” She had short arms and legs and a small neck.
She was told that the child would not have a proper life because of her condition, that she would be bedridden or wheelchair-bound. The doctors added that the baby would need surgeries to get better, and that would cost around $100,000, which Anna and her family didn’t have at the time. Given the circumstances, the doctors advised her to leave the baby in an orphanage and give her a chance to find a family that would be better equipped to take care of her. Anna decided to do as asked and gave the baby to the orphanage. She was later told that the baby was named Natasha, which later became Natalia, and she remained in the orphanage for the next five years.
When an American family decided to adopt Natalia, Anna was informed. She was shown the pictures of her daughter as well as her adoptive parents to assure her that the girl was going to a better place where she would be taken care of. Anna was also advised to stay away from the adoptive parents and not interfere with the adoption process at all. She was told that her daughter would get the surgeries she needed and would have a better future. That’s what Anna believed, until an investigative team showed up at her door in 2019 to tell her what had happened with Natalia. A DNA test was taken, which showed that Anna and Natalia were a 99.999% match, proving that Anna is Natalia’s birth mother.
Anna Gava Hopes to Meet Natalia Again
Anna Gava had been living in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, when investigative teams approached her to learn more about Natalia’s origins. Before Natalia, she had a daughter named Yulia. Since then, she has had three more kids: Miroslav, Kira, and Deniska. While she had divorced Vadik before Natalia’s birth, they reconciled with each other. Unfortunately, Vadik passed away around 2013. Apart from coming into the limelight during the trial of the Barnetts, Anna has mostly lived a private life. She is also a grandmother now; her eldest daughter gave birth to a child in February 2020. The peace and quiet of her life were likely affected by the war between Russia and Ukraine, which saw a major escalation in 2022, and Mykolaiv was one of the major cities to be affected by it.
While there has been no news of Anna and her family since then, she expressed the desire to reunite with Natalia in 2019. She expressed remorse and regret over giving up her daughter all those years ago and apologised to her for abandoning her. She was particularly shocked by the accusations that the Barnetts made about Natalia’s age and was quick to dismiss them by confirming that she gave birth to her in 2003. She accepts responsibility for ditching her daughter but hopes that someday Natalia will reconnect with her and meet her four siblings. She revealed that she thinks about Natalia all the time, despite the years that have passed since she last saw her.
Natalia didn’t directly respond to her birth daughter’s desire to reconnect, but she stated in the Investigation Discovery docuseries, ‘The Curious Case of Natalia Grace,’ that she is not so sure about opening that door. She said that it has been too long since she was in Ukraine, and now, she has a family of her own, the parents who raised her, and the siblings she grew up with. Discovering that her birth mother gave her up the same day she was born has caused heartbreak for Natalia, and she is not yet sure about revisiting those feelings, which will surely open up when she meets Anna. Still, her birth mother’s invitation for reunion stands, as she would be happy to see her daughter again.
Read More: Antwon and Cynthia Mans: Where are Natalia Grace’s Guardians Now?
