Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Laura Owens. And I'm Jan Black, and we are thrilled to welcome our guests on this episode, Magda Newman and her son Nathaniel, who've written

the book Normal, a mother and her beautiful son. Nathaniel was born with severe Treacher-Colon's

syndrome, which is a congenital disorder that causes craniofacial deformities. He had 67 surgeries

in his first 15 years of life.

But despite the fact that his ears, eyes, cheekbones, and jawbone were not properly formed,

Nathaniel's brain and the rest of his body were healthy.

Normal is the story of how the Newman family has tackled the extraordinary challenges

of Nathaniel's condition with love and resilience.

Magda and Nathaniel, thank you both so much for joining us.

Hello, thank you so much for having us on the show.

Uh-huh, thank you.

Magda, tell us more about what happened the day that Nathaniel was born.

Okay, so I had perfect pregnancy, very healthy pregnancy. I was 24 at the time of Nathaniel's

birth, so we were not suspecting anything going wrong. I was expecting to deliver a perfectly

healthy child. And as soon as Nathaniel was born, I noticed that something went wrong. I just saw a pure shock on everybody's

faces, on my doctors and my husband's, and the nurses in the room, and I knew that something's

going on. I wasn't sure what was happening, but I was asking the baby is alive because I could not hear

Nathaniel crying. And they rushed the baby to the little alcoves, like tiny little room and to the

side of the delivery room. And I was able to have a glimpse of Nathaniel's profile. And just by having that quick look at his profile, I knew

that the baby is different. When did you realize he had Tretcher Collins syndrome? How long did it

take for that diagnosis? It took probably a whole entire day. I mean, I was kind of delirious, kind of in shock. I wasn't even

ready to see Nathaniel until the next day. I was kind of processing this event. And in that

...