On we go

The new job's officially started! it's been years since i worked a day-time schedule, and i've never had an office job before.
definitely a lot of adjusting to be done here, but it seems like it's gonna work out just fine. I have to say that i love getting home before midnight, and i love the fact that my husband and i get to see each other every day, for longer than it takes to fall asleep. it's so good!
i seem to be out of the morning sickness, mostly, and the only intense aversion i'm dealing with at the moment is for meat. anyone have any tips? i've just been sticking with soy, since it's so easily available. also, my husband is pretty excellent at cooking it. benefits of marrying a chef!
i've started showing a bit, but only in the "hey you must have had an enormous lunch" way so far. When i get a little bigger, this daily commute is going to be tricky; i'm already feeling seriously squashed on my way to work and back. the belly will not make it easier. oh well, hasn't happened yet. better not to make myself crazy by worrying about it too badly.

what i AM worrying about, quite a lot, is childcare. we need to focus on public nursery schools, since the private ones are very definitely out of our reach. i did a little price checking and despaired; on top of that most private nursery schools and kindergartens don't take infants under 1yr. public ones designed to help out working moms (there are a few, although they're few and far between and all have waiting lists) will take infants any time after the mandatory maternity leave ends. they also scale their prices to reflect the salaries of the parents, which is why we should be able to afford them.
there's some public nurseries nearby that seem legit, so we need to call them up and see if they have rolling admission. the plan is to take maternity leave and then a few months of childcare leave, until the baby is about 6 months old (october). however, just like all the other types of schools in japan, the school year starts in April. there's also a huge demand for childcare that can't be met, and so children routinely don't get in. you're expected to register your child for your top three to six choices the previous fall. if you get in, congratulations! The chances of a space being open for our baby, 6 months after everyone else started, are slim.

this would mean i can't go back to work, unless we figure out some way for me to work from home. while we can survive with me on half-salary for 6 months, we won't have any cushion and we won't be able to save anything up or do anything except pay bills. it's going to be tough. if we can't place the baby in a good nursery school (i.e. one that is registered, licensed, and hopefully well-regarded) we're stuck, for however long it takes. i can take up until the baby's 1st birthday as childcare leave, with the option for an additional 2 months if there's still no childcare available.
i would really, really prefer not to do that for a lot of reasons.

anyone have any advice? i'd love to hear it.

cloth diapers?

Cloth vs Disposable: Does anyone have a thought about this?
I'm planning to check with my sister-in-law and see how she's handling it. It's too awkward to ask my mother-in-law, for sure. However, Mu-chan's son is just about 6 months old at this point. Surely I can ask her for a little advice? Right? I hope she can shed a little light.

At the moment I'm reading everything I can find about the subject and making myself more than a little crazy. I'm barely at the end of the first trimester- we don't exactly need to worry about diapers yet. However, I like to plan things out effectively and preferably with backup plans in place so that when it inevitably goes wrong I can adapt with minimum stress and time to spare. That strategy may not work with babies. I'll simply have to do the best I can.

Currently I'm thinking of using a mix of prefolds and liners with assorted diaper covers. The Sweet Pea, Wolbybug and Tidy Tots covers seem to have good reviews. Anyone have any personal experience? I'm considering getting two of each, a handful of inserts for overnights and outings, and then buying the easily available Japanese prefolds I can get down the street for every day use. I'm planning to use disposables for the first couple months, though, and then ease my way in to cloth diapers. That should give me a little time to get used to the cloth ones, and also avoid any newborn fit issues so I can just buy one-size covers.

A lot of the brands I'm looking at don't seem to be available in Japan. Does anyone know if they ship? Should I just send them to my parents' place and pay mom for shipping them over to me? That might be easier. Time to ask around!

Prenatal Vitamins in Japan

One thing every site I've looked at has advocated is prenatal vitamins. It's established custom to start early and take them through the length of the pregnancy. Some people advocate taking them while breastfeeding. Some people recommend a normal multivitamin plus a folic acid supplement. Every US based site seems to be emphatic about the need for vitamins to supplement your diet.

My mom was pretty horrified to find out that Japanese doctors don't recommend them and in fact don't mention them to patients. The assumption is that the baby won't be suffering, since it takes what it needs from Mom regardless, and that Mom can make it back up later. My husband was pretty surprised that it's considered a pregnancy staple in the US.
He's asked me not to take them. He's worried about me taking something that doesn't seem to be medically necessary, especially when he doesn't know what's in it. I'm sure it doesn't help that he can't read the available literature easily.

My mom is very worried because i haven't been taking any supplements.

as far as i can tell the major need is for folic acid, which is super important in the first few weeks and should be taken up through the first trimester. I'm at the end of that now; the ship has sailed, sans folic acid. Intense morning sickness kept me from eating much for the last few months so i'm not sure how much it would have helped. All i know is that the only foods i desperately wanted to eat (and actually could eat! joy of joys!) at that time turned out to have high folic acid concentrations. Kiwi fruit, cantaloupe, broccoli... Hopefully that'll be enough.

I'm trying to eat a reasonable diet although it's difficult to handle most foods. Currently the main worry is protein, since meat isn't working out for me. Someone has ordered vitamins off of iHerb and is sending them to me, which is very sweet. Should i take them? Does it make a difference at this point?

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For ladies who would like to take prenatals: http://jp.iherb.com/search?sug=multivitamins+-+prenatal&kw=prenat&rank=3
they do ship to japan! and it looks like they offer free shipping for orders over ¥4000. If it's hard to meet that limit by yourself, it's probably worth it to order together with a friend. shipping fees can be brutal!

13 weeks (and the last six of them have been rainy)

So this little creature is officially 13 weeks along. suddenly i understand why pregnant ladies are all about the skirts. zero effort, less unpleasant tightness, and people think you care what you look like. brilliant! all-round winner for the pregnant lady who, like myself, is tired and lazy.
also, japanese maternity clothes (when you can find them at all) are awful, unless you're partial to beige and shapeless. this means i am absolutely wearing my regular clothes until i'm forced by cruel nature into buying something i truly hate.

i seem to have weathered the worst of the morning sickness and the exhaustion that comes with it. whoever named it morning sickness was a filthy liar. there is nothing about this sickness that has to do with mornings, except that it starts in the morning and then continues right on until the next morning, when it will start again. luckily, it's now mostly gone! i know i'm one of the fortunate few to have it calm down so early. now all i've got is the lingering inability to eat all the things i know i should eat, like protein. Meat is a huge problem at the moment. the smell of it, the look of it, and the actual taste of it- all appalling right now. chicken seems to be the worst offender because the mere smell of chicken is enough to make me want to run away, but i can't eat any meat at all unless it's a teeny slice of ham or something well hidden by vegetables or cheese.
yes, i know i'm not supposed to eat prosciutto. or salmon, or sushi, or mozzarella, or any of those things.
i'm going to eat them anyway because they don't turn my stomach and my other options are currently limited to: plain white rice, white bread, pasta without any sauce, yogurt, raw or steamed vegetables without any seasoning, fruit, or things made out of sugar. oh, and occasionally i can trick myself into eating eggs.
so yeah, it's not morning sickness because now i can eat something, but it's not like the whole wide world of gourmet cuisine has opened up to me either.

on the plus side, i can now drink tea and coffee without the smell making me want to die! oh wait, i'm not supposed to have that either? too bad. it's not like i'm drinking an entire pot. i'm having a cup or two every once in a while to keep myself sane and give me something to do with my friends while i still have friends.

the baby is getting bigger and bigger, and as my drummer was sweet enough to point out last night i now have a big round face. thanks. great to know that even though i can barely eat food and have dropped a lot of weight i didn't need to lose to begin with, my face is nice and fat. oh good! just what i always wanted. my bassist was also good about mentioning how lucky we were to conceive quickly (true. we were damn lucky and i know it.) because i'm getting old. even better!

so me and my big round old face are actually doing pretty well right now. i wish it would stop raining so i could do something other than sit in the house and write this blog on my day off, but hey! i'll take it. we're off to look at baby stuff today, because it's super ridiculously fun even though we're about 8 weeks away from knowing what kind of baby this is going to be.



disclaimer: just because i feel like hell doesn't mean i'm not psyched about this. it's extremely awesome. i just feel gross while i'm waiting for this awesome thing to happen. and this is a blog, so i'm allowed to complain about shit. that's the fun thing about blogs. if you would prefer not to read about it, that's totally cool. there's a lot of blogs out there and most of them aren't the one i'm writing. i'm not going to be hurt if you prefer cat pictures. do your thing.

First things first

Hello, internet. Nice to meet you again. I'm less cheerful and entertaining these days, but hopefully that's balanced out by having more interesting things to say.

This blog will be a general account of my life as a I deal with a new pregnancy here in Japan. Watch me try and cope; an American woman married to a Japanese man, working in an industry that notoriously doesn't care in a country that thinks women should stay home and cook, with no family close by and very little support available. If this appeals, welcome. 

If it doesn't, well then there's a whole giant amount of internet out there and I'm sure there's something in it for you.

If my struggles to make this all make sense manage to help someone, then I'll be psyched. Here's hoping.