Hoag NICU staff are on Team Jay for Saturday’s 5K

Jay Nova Sanchez is at that age, almost 11 months old, where Mom and Dad like to try to prompt a first word out of their infant.

“Bananas, blueberries, pumpkin,” Mikey Sanchez of Fullerton said Wednesday afternoon, encouraging his first child. “Say ‘Mama.’ No, not today?”

Jay just smiled, unwilling to oblige, at least for now.

That’s perfectly fine. The presence of a healthy child says a lot by itself.

Megan Sanchez gave birth to Jay via Cesarean section on June 16, 2023, at 1:48 a.m. He was born more than three months premature.

Megan, Jay Nova and Mikey Sanchez, in front left to right, smile on Wednesday with Hoag NICU nurses Makenna Augusta and Kylie Collins at the facility where the infant was born.

(Eric Licas)

His birth weight was about 500 grams — 1 pound, 1 ounce. After birth, the micropreemie was whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Hoag Hospital Newport Beach.

“We came every single day,” Megan Sanchez said. “We would sit with him, sing with him, read him books. Eventually, we did get to hold him. It was a whole production to hold him because it took four or five people to place him on you. He could fit in my sports bra. That’s how little he was.”

This weekend is about celebrating Jay, the miracle baby. A handful of Hoag NICU staff are running the Hoag OC Marathon 5K along with Jay’s family and friends on Saturday evening at the Orange County Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa.

Kylie Collins and Makenna Augusto, Jay’s primary nurses in the NICU, wouldn’t miss the 5K. They cared for him until he was released in mid-October to go to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, where a gastronomy tube was installed.

He had progressed slowly; he spent well more than 100 days in the Hoag NICU unit, the longest that a baby has been in that particular unit. There were 133 days in the NICU overall, between Hoag and CHOC.

“Celebrating all of the wins is important in the NICU,” Collins said. “Even if it’s, ‘They took 10 [milliliters], which is more than the five than they took yesterday.’ You have to learn what a win is, just so you can keep positive and watch them grow. It sometimes feels like nothing is changing, when things really are changing, you just can’t see it.”

Mikey, Jay Nova and Megan Sanchez stand in the Hoag NICU facility where the infant was born about three months premature.

(Eric Licas)

Jay got to go home from CHOC on Oct. 26. About six months later, the micropreemie is thriving.

“Even in our NICU, everyone’s like, ‘How’s Jay?’” Augusto said with a laugh. “He would be wide awake the whole time, staring at everyone. He just wanted to hang. He loved the ocean view [from his room].”

She added that Mikey and Megan were everyone’s cheerleaders in the NICU.

“We’ve never had parents be so encouraging to everyone else,” Augusto said. “Mikey was always out there telling everyone that he was praying for them, and that they’d be OK.”

The ocean detail is funny, considering that Jay was named after surfer Jay Moriarity, the late surfer from Santa Cruz who was the subject of the documentary “Chasing Mavericks.” Moriarity loved the ocean and was known for his sportsmanship.

What’s more than funny was that the day their son was born, Mikey looked up Jay Moriarity’s birthday. It’s the same as his son’s, June 16.

“We just both sat there and felt very humbled and blessed,” Mikey Sanchez said. “He never gave up, and we know that [our] Jay never gave up. Paddle, paddle, paddle became his thing every day.”

To this day, Hoag doctors don’t know what caused Megan’s complications that led to Jay’s early arrival. What the Sanchez family believes is that their son was meant to be here.

Megan and Mikey Sanchez describe the first time they saw their son’s hands in the neonatal intensive care unit at Hoag Hospital.

(Eric Licas )

He was on oxygen when he got home, but that ended within a week. The gastronomy tube was taken out in March; the family hadn’t needed it since the new year began.

“He’s surpassed all of the milestones,” Megan Sanchez said. “Now they don’t even believe us when we say he’s a micropreemie.”

Megan added that her son is living his best life. He’s gone to the river a couple of times and to the beach. He never misses a meal.

Plenty of loved ones will hit the pavement at the 5K on Saturday night for Jay, who one day will understand the difficulties that he’s overcome.

“He’s living his best life,” Megan said with a laugh. “I think he’s a little sad that we traded his Newport view for Fullerton, but maybe one day he can make his own living here.”