Romanian native Claire Thomasen is receiving help from her homeland in her bid to get home to visit her birth family since SunLive published her story on October 7.

Since then, the story has been picked up by three Romanian news sites and people from the southern European country have made contact asking how to donate to help get Claire to Romania.

Claire with her mother Sue. Inset: Two-year-old Claire in Romanian.

Claire was adopted by Tauranga woman Sue Thomasen from a Romanian orphanage when she was two-years-old.

The 25-year-old, whose Romanian name is Georgiana-Dumitrina Hliboceanu, was placed in the orphanage in Iasi when she was born in 1988.

Claire says her mother, Mihaela Hliboceanu, gave her up for adoption because she couldn't afford to keep her.

'I was pushing two and couldn't talk, walk, had little hair, no teeth and never had hard food,” Claire says when talking about the day she was adopted.

'I was one of 30 children who sat in a silent room rocking themselves in an orphanage which had been hidden during the rule of Nicolae Ceausescu since around 1988.”

News of the orphanages spread to New Zealand once the Romanian leader had been tried, sentenced and executed for genocide and sabotage.

Sue was planning to adopt a child from Sierra Leone until she saw the news of the orphanages in Romania.

She, along with five other families, boarded a plane immediately with plans of adopting a child.

It took Sue three months before she chanced upon her future daughter, who took Sue by the arm as she walked down a row of cots in the orphanage.

Recently Claire has been on a mission to find her birth mother to thank her for giving her up and giving her the chance of a better life.

She has since found two birth sisters, an aunt, a nana and her birth mother has also been told about her.

'She is in a bit of shock and needs time for the news to sink in,” says Claire.

'Hopefully in time we will be in contact.”

People who would like to donate can do so at: http://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/Getclairehome