Experience: I thought I’d never meet my newborn son

Our baby was on the way when Thailand banned commercial surrogacy. Clinics were raided. Calls and emails went unanswered

My husband and I were on holiday in Greece when the email arrived to tell us we were having a baby. Our surrogate was pregnant after the first embryo transfer. This was the news Bill and I had dreamed of; it was our final attempt at parenthood, whatever the outcome. We had been trying to have a baby for nine years, and I had experienced five miscarriages. We were emotionally and physically drained.

A couple of weeks before the news came, we had flown from our home in Australia to Bangkok. My eggs were collected and Bill made his contribution. Later, an embryo was transferred into the Thai surrogate’s womb. I was 37 by then, and surrogacy was not a decision we had taken lightly. I had done a lot of research to find the right country with the right laws and an ethical clinic; surrogates there had completed their own families and were not financially pressured.

Related: Experience: I'm a translator for criminals and the voiceless

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No safe level of coffee drinking for pregnant women, study says

Cut out caffeine to help avoid miscarriage, low birth weight and stillbirth, paper advises

Pregnant women should cut out coffee completely to help avoid miscarriage, low birth weight and stillbirth, according to a study of international evidence about caffeine and pregnancy.

In contradiction to official guidance in the UK, US and Europe, there is no safe level for caffeine consumption during pregnancy, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine.

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‘Suzanne wears a necklace that reads Mama-To-Be. The rest of her is blood and gore’: notes from the nursing frontline

In 20 years as a paediatric nurse, I have witnessed the extremes of pain and joy. What keeps me coming back is hope

My daughter is here. Curled up in a hedgehog ball, but softer than anything in the universe. She is born with a quiff of thick black hair and an expression that says she’s been here before. A knowing, testing look. She is early, and small. I begin assessing my baby as if she’s one of my intensive-care patients. I check her reflexes, pupil reaction, respiratory rate and capillary refill time. Mary, the maternity support worker, watches me and laughs. “Nurses and doctors – always the worst patients.”

I try not to think of all the babies, children and adults I’ve cared for who were seriously ill, but I can’t stop. I realise that when my daughter hurts, I will hurt more. And she is not hurting. She is fine. But something in me shifts. I think of all the faces of the mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and grandparents of my patients through all my years of paediatric nursing. I try to imagine their primal pain. How could I not have appreciated the extent of it? In the most desperate of unimaginable horrors, in the face of disability, or serious illness, or pain, or loss, how do patients’ families stand upright? How do they find the courage to care?

‘She’ll lose the baby, won’t she? It’s too early. She was on the phone to me from the car, hands-free, but still...’

‘Is that the adopted one?’ My son turns and listens, and I know in my bones that he understands what she has said

Born addicted to crack cocaine and heroin, even in his tiny state Michael shows signs of foetal alcohol syndrome

Related: The Language of Kindness by Christie Watson review – what it means to be a nurse

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I don’t regret my abortion. But the coronavirus lockdown made it a guilty secret

I got pregnant when I should have been social distancing. So now I can’t tell my friends or family about the termination

There are two pink lines. Amid the chaos of this spring – the pandemic, lockdown, looming economic crisis – just one thing is certain: I am pregnant.

I am 36 and, strictly speaking, single. Before lockdown, I had secretly started seeing my ex, Jon, again. It wasn’t perfect, but freed us from pressure to define our relationship to anybody. Then lockdown hit. The arts industry in which I work vanished overnight. I was alone in my tiny flat, depressed, desperately missing my work, friends, family … and Jon. I craved the feel of skin. He believed he had already had Covid-19, and we both lived alone, so surely it couldn’t be so bad if we met up?

Two days before my appointment, I had a surprise call from the hospital

Related: It shouldn’t be left to women to fight alone for abortion rights | Gaby Hinsliff

With lockdown came new versions of shame and judgment for rule-breakers, and I dread the extra explaining

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Katy Perry: 'I've done a lot of falling flat on my face'

Nine months pregnant with an album due at the same time as the baby, the star once known for her unfiltered goofiness has evolved. She talks depression, cancel culture – and her return to pure pop

Via a webcam into her Los Angeles home, Katy Perry slowly descends into frame, nine months pregnant with her first child. She looks like the Virgin Mary via Warhol in a voluminous azure dress and a matching pearl-studded headband. “The conception was not virginal, I’ll tell you that,” she says with trademark cartoonish verve. All that’s visible of her house is a lustrous brown curtain, the stage for her recent promo activities. She estimates that this is her 70th interview about her fifth album, Smile. (Going by the banal, grin-and-bear-it US radio interviews, she has the patience of a saint if not the impregnation tactics.) Baby and record were neck-and-neck until production delays bumped the latter to 28 August: the girl she and fiance Orlando Bloom have nicknamed “Kicky Perry” comes first.

The pandemic only slightly skewed her plans: Perry, 35, always intended to release the album, have a baby and skip touring, resenting the suggestion that she should have to choose. That said, it has helped that every pop star is working from home. “It’s not like I was some witch with a spell: I’m gonna do it this way so you’re gonna do it this way,” she says with mock glee. “But yes, I probably don’t have as much Fomo as I would have if the world hadn’t shifted.” Last night she was filming a video until 2am, her last big commitment: “There is definitely a groundedness of: ‘Here’s the music, enjoy, love ya, I’m out!’”

No one can make you feel or believe something about yourself that you don’t already

Related: ‘I created this character called Katy Perry. I didn’t want to be Katheryn Hudson. It was too scary’

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Study links cannabis use during pregnancy to autism risk

Research suggests 50% greater risk for children whose mothers report using cannabis

Children born to mothers who report using cannabis during pregnancy have about a 50% greater risk of developing autism, research suggests.

While the team behind the work said more research was needed to unpick whether cannabis itself was behind the link, they said the results were concerning.

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