HER youngest child snuggles into her arms as he watches TV.

It could be a scene in any family home in Hampshire.

But the two-year-old boy in Tania Walbanke’s arms only came into her life 18 months ago.

Tania and husband Pete adopted the youngster four months ago after fostering him since he was a six-month-old baby.

Now, as the Daily Echo continues its Give a Child a Home campaign to help the 100 Hampshire youngsters currently looking for permanent loving homes, Tania has spoken about her experience as an adoptive and foster mum.

The 52-year-old and her 54-year-old husband have a growing family.

As well as Tania’s two grown-up biological daughters and two grandsons, they also have three adoptive sons aged two, six and ten and their third foster child, an eight-year-old boy, has just moved in to their New Forest home.

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The former legal secretary said she had always wanted to adopt but the time wasn’t right until she met Pete, a boat builder, who had also always wanted adoptive children.

“It was something I had wanted to do since I was a child. I don’t know where that came from,” said Tania.

“When I got with my second husband I had had a hysterectomy so I said if he wanted his own birth-children, he couldn’t with me but he said that he’d always wanted to adopt.

“After speaking about it, we decided that maybe I should make a phone call and see what it entails. We decided we would go one step at a time.”

It was about five years later that she held her eldest son arrived at her home, just six months old.

She said: “I remember the day I had the phone call for my first adoptive child. Overjoyed was not the word.”

A few years later he got a new adoptive brother and the couple registered as foster parents so they can help more children.

And in August they adopted their third son after fostering him for 18 months.

Tania said: “We felt that it would be too detrimental to him to go somewhere else and we said if he wasn’t going to family we would go for adoption.

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“We have got a really special bond, him and I – I don’t think we could have let him go.”

Now she said they are just a normal family.

“However we’ve been made up, we’re all family,” she said.

“We’re just like any ordinary family. We argue, we fight, and then we make up.

“Living with birth parents doesn’t make the perfect family. What does make it perfect is that your parents love the children and everyone loving each other.

“People do say to me ‘how can you love a child that’s not yours?’ You grow to love your baby but when you have a birth-child the love starts the nine months they’re inside.

Tania and Pete write to each of the boys’ birth family every year and some of the boys are in touch with biological parents and grandparents who they meet now and then or speak to over the phone.

“They all know exactly what’s happened in their lives and they’re fine with it.

“We will discuss anything. I think if you close the book it’s like everything in life: if it’s a mystery you want to find out more, if it’s an open book it’s already there.”

Calling Pete her rock, the grandmother-of-two said she has |no regrets about adopting or fostering and would take on more children if she could.

She told the Daily Echo that she receives plenty of support from Southampton City Council and she has also inspired friends and neighbours to sign up and welcome needy children into their homes.

She said: “I would never change what I’ve done. |I actually forget they’re adopted.

“I have no different love for my adoptive children than my birth children.

“If I won the pools or someone gave me a bigger house I would do it again.

“If you feel fit, young and healthy then age shouldn’t put you off. And whether you’re a same-sex couple or straight, what’s that got to do with it? As long as you can offer a child a safe place to live, then why not?

“If you’re serious about adopting then they will bring you nothing but joy.”