From China With Love

Although Emily Buchanan had a highly successful career in broadcasting and a loving husband there was something missing from her life: she desperately wanted children. After the trauma of three miscarriages, Emily and her husband Gerald were forced to accept the knowledge that they would not be able to have children of their own and decided to look into adoption. Their desire to have a very young baby led them to consider an adoption from abroad. As a journalist Emily knew only too well the sad plight of many children in the world trafficked to desperate couples and determined that her child had to come from a country where adoption was properly regulated.

In this touching story Emily describes their first meeting with Jade Lin, who had been left on the steps of an orphanage in a small town in Inner Mongolia just after she had been born. Unlike many of the thousands of less fortunate babies abandoned each year in China, Jade Lin had been placed with a foster family before being approved for adoption and allocated to a family. It was love at first sight for Emily and Gerald, but they still had obstacles of language and culture to cross, as well as dealing with the reaction of friends and family back at home. This diary tells in vivid detail the highs and lows of Emily’s journey to motherhood.

"extraordinarily brave and honest, and written with great clarity. I can't remember reading anything on the subject that was as open,... or done with as much dignity. ...neither of us could puit it down, and we were both very moved by it. John Simpson

"A delightful and candid account of a quest for much wanted children." Kate Adie

"A factual and honest account of a mother's journey in adopting two daughters from China." Adeline Yen Mah

1. A Tunnel at the End of the Light.

2. The Long March to Motherhood.

3. Chinese Revelations.

4. Journey to Jade.

5. Practice Makes Parent.

6. Little Dragon, Little Horse.

7. From Nanchang to Notting Hill.

Was 'Critic's Choice' in the Daily Mail on Friday June 24th, "...Buchanan's book is much more than a story with a happy ending "...Interspersed between adoption details are vivid depictions of China and Chinese culture..."

"...a moving examination of the need to parent..." (Bolton Evening News, July 05)

"...Emily Buchanan's story is inspiring. It is funny, honest and extremely readable." (The Tablet, 30th July 2005)

"Emily Buchanan has provided not only a reasonable account of adoption and the hugely important issue of the world's unwanted children, but also a life-affirming, immensely brave response to the inability to conceive naturally..." (The Catholic Herald, 12th Aug 05)

"...a refreshing change from the cloying sentimentality of many East-meets-West accounts..." (Her World, Sept 2005)

"...a brave and honest account..." (Today's Parents, Oct 05)

Emily Buchanan is an award winning journalist and broadcaster. Educated at St. Paul's Girls' School, Sussex University and City University, she has worked for the BBC for over twenty years. As a producer and correspondent for BBC News and Current Affairs she specialised first in politics and more recently in the developing world and religion. She has made documentaries for Newsnight, Assignment and Correspondent on BBC 2 and has presented Radio 4's A World in Your Ear. Currently she is a World Affairs Correspondent, living in London with her husband and two children.

When Emily Buchanan married her husband, Gerald, after a fairy tale romance, she assumed children would soon follow. The perfect wedding must surely lead to the perfect family. Emily had a successful career and a loving husband, yet she knew that she would not feel fulfilled unless she also had children.

But the journey to motherhood was to be a long and painful one.

Three miscarriages later she found herself struggling against the stigma of infertility and doubts if she could, or should, ever become a mother. She decided it was time to look at adoption.

Emily and Gerald’s desire to adopt a very young child meant looking abroad yet, as a journalist, Emily knew only too well the sad plight of some children in the developing world who were trafficked to Western couples. She was determined that her child should come from a country where adoption was properly regulated and China, where many baby girls are abandoned, seemed an obvious choice. It was a road that took her through an arduous adoption process which made her again confront the life and tragic death of her own mother.

Eventually the mountain of bureaucratic and emotional challenges gave way to the utter joy of bringing up Jade and Rose her two Chinese daughters.