Adoption has a lot of paperwork. A LOT. Every part of the process – the application, matching, placement, health and genetic history, post adoption reports, finalizing and getting proper documents, and communication with the birth family just to name a few. I consider myself to be a fairly organized person and I struggled with keeping it all together.
I want my kids to each have a record of their adoption process, and be able to read through the letters I’ve sent to their birth parents and they’ve sent to us. I wanted it to be in a format that they could just pick up and look at, rather than stuffed in a pile in my desk drawer.
So, to that end, I’ve come up with a system that works and I wanted to share it with you today – on our very last day of National Adoption Month. I’d love to hear how others keep their paperwork organized and easily accessible too.
My “staying organized” essentials include:
1. Scanner – this is absolutely key to my plan to stay organized. I have a small scanner that doesn’t take up a lot of room. It scans documents quickly and saves them as a pdf. It was around $250 and was worth every penny. I scan every piece of adoption-related paper that comes in or goes out of the house. For example, every monthly report I sent to the agency, every letter I mail to birth parents, all of the paperwork for our applications, etc. You get the idea! I can’t tell you how many times this has helped me when I need to look back and reference something.
2. Computer – I scan everything to the computer, and then the computer is backed up every night. I use a service called mozy.com for the remote back ups. I signed up for this service because I keep all of our family documents and photos on the computer, and would be completely devastated if I lost them! It costs about $5 a month.
3. Three ring binders – I have one per child and one for our adoption application. I also use a 3 hole punch, 3 hole document protectors, 3 hole photo sleeves to hold pictures.
4. ”Saver Box” – I have one box per child that is about 16″ x 16″ x 5″. I use this to store the actual binder, as well as other keepsakes that won’t fit into their binder. For example my daughter has 2 outfits from her birth family that I placed in her box as a keepsake for her, and my son has the rosary that his birth mother prayed while pregnant with him. I got the boxes at Joann’s and I think they were about $15.
Here is the binder and saver box. Please note my son is only 4, and that’s his paperwork so far! 
My “kid binders” include the following sections. This might not work exactly for your situation, but you get the general idea.
1. Birthparent Communication – this includes all of the letters that I’ve sent, and photos, as well as what their birth parents have sent us. I put photos from their birth parents in the photo sleeves so they lay flat and are protected . For the pictures I send, I just scan them and print 12 per page. We have the photos elsewhere in our family books, but I want them to see a quick snapshot of what I sent. I also use the document holders for cards . I date everything when we receive it, which makes the filing easier – especially if I get behind.
2. Monthly Reports – we had to send a monthly report to the agency for the first 6 months our children lived with us. It was fun to look back on these; they note their milestones and include photos. There are 6 reports and 6 pages of photos.
3. ”My Adoption Day” – this section includes all of the paperwork from their adoption day, as well as cards we received. I made a soft cover photo book (using shutterfly or something similar) and ordered two copies. One is in the binder (in a plastic sleeve) and one is out for them to read whenever they want.
4. Official Papers – In this section I printed copies of all of their real documents. This includes their birth certificate, SSN card, adoption decree, and baptism certificate. Any adoptive parents will know you have to do a lot of work to get all of these, so it’s awesome to see the final document when it comes!
5. Health History – In our case, our children’s birthparents both filled out paperwork with their genetic history. I put these in the binder because I think it will be interesting to my kids someday. I would not put anything in there that a child should not see – this information is more hair and eye color, right or left handed, things they are good at, etc. If you don’t have this information, I think a “history” section could include something about the country or culture or state where the child was born.
My “application binder” includes the following sections. Obviously we are no longer using our application, but keeping it all organized throughout the process was so helpful. When we filled out our application for the second adoption, I pulled a lot of the information from the first one.
1. Checklist – a big old list of everything that has to be done. It feels good once you get started and check some of the items off the list.
2. Financials – I wrote down every time we spent money – who, what, when and how much. I also scanned the receipts. This is really important for tax purposes. My company and my husband’s both offered adoption reimbursement and we had to show receipts and final adoption decrees to be eligible.
3. Application – the application form itself. I kept it in this section while I worked on all of the pieces, and then scanned, printed, and kept the final copy here once I sent it in.
4. Communication – jot down when you talk to your caseworker and a few notes about the conversation. I looked back at mine while writing this article and it’s fun to look at after everything is finalized. But at the time it’s helpful to keep things straight. I used to check in with our caseworker about a once a month and this helped me remember the last time I’d called/bugged her.
5. Home Study – for our agency, this was separate from the application. I kept the paperwork and notes about when it expired. Our home study cost was in addition to our adoption fees, so I noted that here and in the financials section too.
6. Other – oh, the good “other” category for any other stuff you need. In my case I had directions to the agency, names of hotels nearby, and a copy of our profile.
I hope this is helpful. I started off this article saying I’m fairly organized, and I just proof read it and think I might be a little over the top organized – hahaha! It has made things so much easier, and I hope my children will enjoy looking through their adoption paperwork one day.
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