Waiting to adopt a child can seem like the endless journey without a map. One way to make the time go faster is to go ahead and start an adoption scrapbook album. Journaling your thoughts about the waiting process, the things you've bought, the home study, etc. will all help you feel like the arrival of the child is the next step. Plus, you'll begin to see why recording your thoughts will be so precious when your child arrives.

Don't get overwhelmed with the idea of an adoption album. One of the best places to begin is with a long list of topics about your adoption experience. These kinds of lists can be found on a variety of web sites, including my own, which has over 150 topics.

Decide what style of book you want. You can buy a hard-cover book at your favorite bookstore that resembles a typical baby book. Or you may want to consider purchasing a pre-made adoption album, or even hiring a freelance scrapbooker to do a pre-designed book for you. One of the best options in my opinion is the Adoption Scrapbook Album which is twenty pages of overlays, where you get to choose five that specifically fits your child's experience. These transparency overlays make your book look like it was designed by a professional, but with the price tag of doing it yourself.

Go buy your stickers and other embellishments. Though few mention adoption, you can find a lot of stickers that mention family, baby milestones, love, and life events. These can be helpful to fill in spaces and add some style.

Have fun writing down the day-to-day stuff and taking photos of silly things. Now with digital cameras you can take dozens of photos of things a close up of Cheerios to the pile of laundry. The more creative photos you take, the more fun you'll have journaling. Later on, you'll be glad you wrote and photographed about the uneventful stuff too and your child will love reading about it.

Be imaginative, but don't get obsessive. Unless you want to make new friends, don't join "cropping parties." Buy a decent paper cutter, only cut your photos with straight edges (avoiding circles will save hours), matte your photos using solid-color card stock, and purchase the patterned paper in bulk (craft stores call them "slabs.").

Write it down now. It's a good idea to get the adoption scrapbook album done sooner rather than later so your toddler can look at it, at least start keeping notes as you go so you will have lots of journaling ideas to choose from. Purchase a small notepad to carry around in the diaper bag so you have it handy when you want to write down something that happened or just record your thoughts.

My son turns five-years-old in a couple of week. The first year of his life I grew so weary of strangers telling me, "It goes so fast." But now I am one of those people smiling at little babies and gushing to new moms, "Cherish this time. It goes too fast." Adoption is such an extraordinary experience. It is so easy to think that you will remember every emotion you ever have when you look into your sweet baby's eyes. But come on... our brains can only hold so much. Our children do grow up so quickly, so record those cherished memories now before you forget.