RetireJapan

I would reiterate that investing might be less a priority then the other things on your list.

1. What the obstacles for you getting PR?

2. Are you looking to rent forever or buy? At 50 your limited to shorter term mortgages. Have you factored that in?

3. Birthing costs, including NIPT testing would probably stretch your current emergency fund.

4. With ideco your cannot access the money until retirement age. That might present extra risks in your case.

My advice?: Focus on saving more cash and consider getting serious with Nisa once you have more cash savings.

I can say only what we did.
When we had our kids we didn’t have the child allowance then. Once that started we decided to imagine “we never had that money”.Mainly because nobody has kids to make money(well not in developed countries anyway).
With that money, put it away into a global fund.
Then when the NISA started we popped some more into that.

Birth: check with your city office. Some places have different rules. I think our city office paid the clinic directly.
Previously we paid the clinic then claimed it back. So it might depend on the area.

Home: mmm always tricky as we get older.
We decided to buy an older home. Not run down! Very nice, but post 80s.

The NISA can be good because if there really was an emergency, you can get access to it. We took that route.
The IDECO is a little better as there is the city tax benefit but you are locking that away and can’t get access to it.
So we mostly went NISA with some IDECO.

Kids: having kids. Congratulations! Our city took care of the fees directly but as they got older We took out student loans as saving for everything and everyone kinda seemed a bit of a stretch for us. And I think they might need more help as they get older. House, kids, etc.

Save some cash! Invest some!