A mom called “cruel” for choosing life for her son, who had a rare severe cleft lip, proudly says she has never held him back. Now he’s 18 and thriving.
Zac Coates was born with Tessier cleft lip and palate—a condition caused by the facial tissues not joining properly during development.
This left Mr. Coates with severe facial disfigurement, a missing eyelid, and no vision in his right eye.
His mom, Joanne Lythgoe-Frank, now 58, originally from Manchester, was living in Cyprus when she fell pregnant with Mr. Coates.
At 22 weeks gestation, Ms. Lythgoe-Frank was told her son had a cleft anomaly. Doctors asked her if she wanted to terminate her pregnancy. However, for Ms. Lythgoe-Frank, that was “never an option.”
At 24 weeks, she began to suffer from high blood pressure and developed severe preeclampsia.
Ms. Lythgoe-Frank was rushed for an emergency Cesarian section, and Mr. Coates was born on Feb. 24, 2006, weighing 1lbs 5oz.
“I remember being told, ‘Your little boy isn’t going to survive–he’s got issues. Maybe it’s better he doesn’t,’” Ms. Lythgoe-Frank said.
Hours after giving birth, she was taken to see her baby.
“Zac’s face was all bandaged up,” she said. “It was deemed something you hide away in Cyprus.”
She was told Mr. Coates had a 20 percent chance of survival, and she wasn’t allowed to see him properly until she was able to get him flown over to the UK, two weeks later.
There, Mr. Coates was given an official diagnosis, and Ms. Lythgoe-Frank was able to hold him for the first time.
“My initial reaction was shock at the extent of it,“ she said. “It was different to what I expected—a lot more severe.”
When Ms. Lythgoe-Frank held him for the first time, her instincts told her that he was about to die.
Mr. Coates was discharged after six months in the hospital but had his first surgery at 9 months old to repair his palate and his lip.
Since then, he has been back and forth to the UK to receive further surgeries to reconstruct his face. In total, he has undergone 16 procedures.
In his most recent surgery, in October 2023, doctors reconstructed his cheek using bone from his skull.
For the 17 years he lived in Cyprus, his mom never hid him or shielded him from other people. Instead, she encouraged him to become a confident man.
“I tried to instill in Zac, ‘You are different but to embrace it and be proud of your differences,'” she said.
Mr. Coates has never been bullied and deals with stares and remarks in the best way he can. The first time he attended school, he didn’t want his parents there as he was confident about himself.
“He came home and said a girl had run up and called him a monster,“ Ms. Lythgoe-Frank said. ”He’d pulled a face, blew a raspberry, and said ‘I am a monster.’”
After this incident, the mom spoke to the school and suggested a book they could read to his classmates to help them understand Zac’s condition.
“We never had any issues after that,” she said.
“I’ve always been quite a confident person and an outgoing person,” Mr. Coates said. “If you embrace yourself, that will help you. By neglecting who you are, that makes you sad.
“I would say confidence doesn’t just happen. You gain it over time.”
Once, when the family walked into a local restaurant in Cyprus, everyone went silent when they saw Mr. Coates. However, this kind of thing has never dampened his spirit.
Last year the mother-son duo returned to the UK permanently. Ms. Lythgoe-Frank now works part-time as a receptionist and lives in Faringdon, Oxfordshire.
In April 2024, Mr. Coates walked his mom down the aisle when she married her partner of five years, James Frank, 58, an aircraft engineer.
Currently, Zac is learning the guitar as he aspires to be in a rock band. The happy and healthy 18-year-old is looking forward to attending university to study film production this September.
