An adopted Cumbrian woman is raising money so she can be reunited with her birth parents in Romania for the first time since she was a baby.

Ana Crome’s birth mum, Angela Nicolae, brought her daughter across from Romania for critical surgery necessary for her disability when she was 18 months old.

Mrs Nicolae then put her daughter up for adoption and flew home thinking she would never see her child again.

Miss Crome said: “When mothers give up their child a lot of the time it’s in the same country and there’s a high chance they will come and look for them when they are 18.

“When you give up your child in another country, [mum] probably knew she’d never see me again and that must have been really hard for her.”

Now 26-year-old Miss Crome, who lives in Penrith, wants to meet her birth mum to thank her for what she did.

She said: “I know my birth mum has got a lot of guilt. I wanted to say that it wasn’t the wrong decision. If I stayed in Romania I wouldn’t have made it over two years old.

“I’m 26 now and in my own flat. I want her to see that the decision she made was definitely the right one.”

Miss Crome suffers from arthrogryposis, a rare condition where, because her mum’s womb wasn’t big enough, her joints fixed together in whatever position they could. She has limited movement in her arms and is in a wheelchair. She can only walk a couple of metres at a time with great difficulty.

She is convinced that if her mother had taken her back with her she would probably have died in a Romanian orphanage, known for their abuse and terrible conditions.


Angela Nicolae Mrs Nicolae was so desperate for help when her daughter was a baby she chained herself to the British Embassy. A missionary worker from Yorkshire by chance saw her and organised a fundraising drive to pay for the mother and daughter to come across for surgery.

“After six months mum went back home to Romania and I have never seen her since,” said Miss Crome. “I stayed in hospital until I was three or four. It took a year for the adoption process to go through.”

Miss Crome met her future mum when Pam Carter brought her adopted son into hospital because he had tonsillitis. She found out about the Romanian baby and decided to adopt her too.

Miss Crome, who is a Christian, does not see either the missionary’s intervention or Mrs Carter’s visit to the hospital as coincidences but rather that God planned all of it.

“None of it’s just a story. I think it’s a God story,” she said.

Miss Crome’s new family moved from Yorkshire to Cumbria when she was about five years old. She has since lived in Tallentire, near Cockermouth, Workington and Whitehaven until 2012 when she moved out into her own flat in Penrith.

The flat is part of supported accommodation so there is always someone in the building to help Miss Crome if she ever has a problem.

Miss Crome is very close with Mrs Carter, who she calls mum and who lives in Arlecdon. She likes having her own independence and when she was given the chance of living in supported accommodation, chose Penrith because she was told it had a better nightlife than Kendal.

Although she has tried incredibly hard to find a job over the last four years, no one has given her a chance. Last week alone she applied for 15 jobs in two days.

She volunteers at the Salvation Army charity shop in Penrith but would ideally like a paid job in a reception or administration.

“It’s a job I can do but nobody gives you the chance. They see the disability, they don’t give me the opportunity to go in and say this is what I can do,” she said.

She wants to show employees how bubbly and hard working she is.

“Let them see the personality rather than the chair and once you’ve got them over that, then you’re getting somewhere,” she said. “If they give me the chance they wouldn’t regret it. I do work really hard. I’m good at what I do.”

In five years’ time Miss Crome’s goal is to have a nine-to-five job, Monday to Friday, where she gets paid and wouldn’t necessarily need benefits anymore.

“Then I could live like everybody else lives,” she said.

Earning money would also enable her to go back and forth to Romania once a year as she wants. But because she hasn’t got enough money, Miss Crome is now trying to raise funds so that she and a carer can go to Romania and she can meet her birth mum and dad, Costel.

“I have always wanted to see my roots, see my family,” said Miss Crome.

She has kept in touch with her birth mum throughout her life and though they don’t speak the same language, Miss Crome is trying to learn Romanian.

“Her voice is very familiar, it’s weird. She always used to call me when I was five or six the whole conversation for five minutes was, ‘Ana I love you, Ana’ because that was all the English she knew.”


Ana Crome Miss Crome has set herself a target of £600 but ideally would like to raise £1,000 so she can take a carer with her otherwise the trip won’t be possible. To do this, she has set herself the challenge of walking further than she has ever walked before – 0.3 miles from Marks and Spencer, on King Street, to the Lonsdale Cinema, Middlegate in Penrith.

It will take her about two and a half hours to complete what most people could walk in 10 minutes with lots of breaks and the support of her wheelchair if she needs it.

“My mind’s right up for it,” she said. “My body’s not quite so willing sometimes.”

To get ready for the walk on Saturday, June 25, she has been dancing and walking as much as possible around her flat to build up her strength.

The walk is a serious challenge for Miss Crome who has had seven operations over her lifetime on each leg, arm and foot. She has also had two operations on her back and steel rods put in from the top to the bottom of her spine.

Miss Crome is asked a lot whether she would have an operation to straighten her arms if it existed.

“No I wouldn’t,” she said. “I’d like a little bit more movement but I wouldn’t change the shape of them. If I had hands like yours, I wouldn’t know how to pick things up.”

So far Miss Crome has raised £392. If she does manage to raise the full amount, she hopes she will be able to make the trip back to Romania with a carer and her boyfriend next April.

To support Miss Crome visit https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/ana-crome .