Quick note to frazzled parents-to-be:
There's a rather helpful discussion on assembling paperwork over on the adoption.com forums.

The bureaucracy is intimidating, and always will be, but people get through it all the time.

Odi advises:

1-Order 3 birth and marriage certs. It is cheeper to get the second and third now than having to reorder. You need originals for your dossier and for the 1-600 from our government and then maybe an extra one just in case.
2-Check each Notary to make sure their stamp does not expire for at least a year. They don't care because it is still good but you need it to be current when your dossier gets to China.
3-Relax. A notebook or folder is great to keep track of everything. Just work a little at a time. And don't worry if you have to ask many questions, we all did. Take all the time you need. Some people only take 2 months to get it all together, most take closer to 6 months some take a year.

While jbzanie leaves me feeling a little intimidated with her mad organization skills:

Our agency gave us a guide. I took that guide and put in a binder. I separated each required document into its own tab with the instructions for each document. In each tab, I had a slip in plaster folder that I could put the document in when I was completed. Alot of the documents needed for the homestudy is the same for the dossier. So I made a note of how many copies I needed in each tab. Also on the instructions I put a little highlighting mark for each document needed for the home study.

When the home study happened, all I had to do was go to each tab and pull out each document.

For notarizing, we could notarize some things as a true copy. So I didn't have to use a traveling notary for our dr's appt. Doing this, I was able to have one notary for all our documents. Helped us alot.

One other tip -- photocopy as you go. As I got things notarized, and state sealed, I copied things. I need 2 copies of everything (actually made 3 just to be safe). When I got things back from the Chinese Consulate -- I just needed to copy the top page. Made things alot easier.

There's a lot more on that particular discussion thread (and indeed in each of these two posts).

If you're new to this process, don't miss it.