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

Introduction.

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.

Selected Bibliography.

"...a brave, frank account which will grip you and move you in equal measure..." (Good Book Guide, 1st March 2006)

"...compulsively readable and yet lacking in the cloying sentimentality that flavours the many books on the subject..." (Daily Express, March 2006)

"...a highly readable and fascinating account of the emotionally charged experiences that so many couples now endure..." (The Belfast Sunday Life, April 2006)

"...charming story about her path to motherhood..." (Wales on Sunday, April 2006)

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. "...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 put it down, and we were both very moved by it."
—John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor

"A delightful and candid account of a quest for much wanted children."
—Kate Adie, BBC correspondent and author of The Kindness of Strangers

"A factual and honest account of a mother’s journey in adopting two daughters from China"
—Adeline Yen Mah, Author of Falling Leaves and Chinese Cinderella

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. But three miscarriages later she found herself struggling with doubts if she could, or should, ever become a mother. She decided it was time to look at adoption, and her experience as a journalist prompted her to look to China. It was a road that took her through an arduous process which made her again confront the life and tragic death of her own mother, but eventually the mountain of bureaucratic and emotional challenges gave way to the utter joy of bringing up Jade and Rose, her two Chinese daughters.