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.