Q: Did recent upgrades result in my Mac not receiving notes created on my iPad?

it might be the upgrades so update your iPad and mac to the newest software if not then It could be that you don't have the same iCloud account on the mac as the iPad but if you do then go to settings and go to iCloud and make sure that notes is selected on both devices and once you do that on your mac you should force quit out of notes by pressing command+option+esc and choosing notes and clicking force quit, if its not there then just skip the force quitting step. after that then just open up notes on your mac again and it should be there if not then just wait a few minutes and it should show up soon.