Our son was born 19 1/2 months ago, and we're all still here and in good health, so this can be done! One thing that was very helpful is a device called a co-sleeper - for the first several months, our baby slept next to us, which made feeding very much easier. In your case, of course, you're adopting, so your child will be formula fed. You might want to keep a stash of formula near the bed. (You can get little 3 oz. bottles and put a nipple directly on the bottle.) We also found it useful to have a bassinet in the living room - we didn't think we'd use it but it was a real life saver. A Graco Pack and Play was very useful, and it doubled as a second bassinet, and in extremis as a changing table.

Go for the Diaper Champ, not the Diaper Genie. Trust me on this one.

For your carseat, you'll want to make sure you have it firmly and correctly in the car several weeks ahead of time. Car dealers tell you the LATCH system makes everything easy, but it doesn't. It took a certified carseat professional 45 minutes to get ours in, and we had the one of the best (a Graco Snugride). You can get the carseats in travel systems, which is handy - it's great during the first six months to just be able to lift your baby right out of the car into a stroller without waking her/him up. If you're in Europe, I think you can ignore what I said about getting carseats in - I'm told they have a system that actually does work.

My wife reminds me that something good for baths is helpful. We had something called a "bathinet," which I can't find online. Babies-R-Us carries them. You don't need any baby oils, powders or creams. (It is helpful to have A&D ointment for diaper rashes and Eucerin for heat rashes.) You will want a baby wash, of course - and we found it very helpful to have moisturizing hand-sanitizer for the changing table - you're going to be changing a LOT of diapers.

What else? Good cloth diapers to use as burp cloths, even if you're planning to use disposable ones, lots of receiving blankets (practice your baby-wrapping now!), a comfy changing pad, and lots of good books and DVDs for yourself - we watched the Planet Earth series when Kiran was an infant.

Since you're a Mudcatter, you're probably a musician. For me, at least, bad synthesized music is grating, so we asked people to avoid giving us toys with electric music. Instead we had CDs (our baby loved the blues) and us singing (his appreciation was and is the most gratifying thing in the world). We also had a great mobile from Babies-R-Us which had a little wind-up music box inside. If you do get lots of toys with electric music (they are inevitable in the long run), and it does bother you, a piece of tape over the speaker works wonders. As does removing the battery. Most baby toys are designed to look good to people in the stores, not to actually entertain babies - trust me, your child will do fine without sixteen functions on every toy. The best toys are "baby-powered" anyway. But that's just one parent's opinion.

One of the best things you can do right now is pick up a book called Baby Bargains - it has a wealth of information. The other book we found very helpful was the Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Baby Care - a really helpful guide - easy to read and very informative.

I'm sure there's more. Congratulations on your upcoming adoption - I know it will be a wonderful (and sometimes exhausting) experience!

Dan