After a challenging pregnancy marked by uncertainty, Vivian Hernandez’s son, Sebastian, defied the odds by surviving a premature birth at 22 weeks.
DENVER — It was one year ago, on Mother’s Day weekend, when Vivian Hernandez found out she was pregnant.
She had been trying to expand her family for a while. When she finally got pregnant with a little boy, due in early 2026, she was elated.
“It’s super cliche what they say, right? Once you stop trying, it’s, it’s when it happens, and yep, that’s exactly what happened.”
Most of the first half of Hernandez’s pregnancy progressed without complications. But then it got very complicated, very fast. At 18 weeks, she said her membranes ruptured and her water broke.
“They had given me a 3% chance — they’re like, ‘He has a 3% chance of surviving, or even that you can even get to delivery would be 3%,'” Hernandez said.
“At 18 weeks, you’re not ready. There’s no way you’re ready,” said Dr. Jennifer Zank, a neonatologist and the Medical Director at HCA HealthOne Rocky Mountain Children’s in Colorado. “Twenty-two weeks is when you start saying, OK, maybe we’ve got a shot here. And even then, we’re at the edge of viability.”
Hernandez was transferred from her hospital to HCA Health One Presbyterian St. Luke’s in Denver. She said the doctors helping her try and save her pregnancy couldn’t promise her anything.
“But my faith in God is so big and I, you know, I just literally surrendered it to God, and I was like this is your will, not mine.”
Her son, Sebastian Moncivais, was delivered Sept. 11, 2025, at 22 weeks and 1 day gestation — just past the threshold many hospitals recognize as the edge of viability. He barely weighed one pound.
“He was as big as my hand,” said Sebastian’s father, Henry Moncivais.
Sebastian spent 113 days in the NICU at Rocky Mountain Children’s. He was placed on a ventilator for nearly two months, supported by intravenous nutrition and multiple medications.
“The first few weeks of his life, I was really not sure if he was going survive. I really was not,” Dr. Zank said. “There were days that I would call his mom, Vivian, and say, ‘I’m not sure he’s going to survive today.'”
But in time, Sebastian defied the odds – eventually graduating off the ventilator and wires and learning how to eat and breathe on his own. Two weeks before his initial due date, he got to go back home to his family, including big sister Raelynn.
“We just didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to meet him face to face, and when we were to bring him home, we actually brought him home a couple days before her birthday,” Hernandez said.
“That was the only thing she wanted for her birthday was to meet her baby brother, and we were able to do that. And just at that memory is the core memory that just sits with me of… my two kids in the same room in the same house, it was amazing.”
Sebastian now weighs about 12 pounds and is meeting developmental milestones consistent with his NICU-adjusted age. He still requires supplemental oxygen occasionally, but is mostly breathing with assistance.
“To be born at 22 weeks and then to go home before your due date, eating everything by mouth, and really the only thing that you need is oxygen support — that speaks volumes,” Dr. Zank said.
“I was thrilled that they were going to be together on Mother’s Day at home,” she added. “And having this beautiful time together, knowing where she was this point last year…feeling hopeless. And here we are full of hope for the future.”
For Hernandez, the meaning of Mother’s Day has deepened considerably.
“Sunday is just like a reminder of like, this is my day — of how strong, as a mom, you have to be to carry your family from the ups, the downs,” she said.
“If anything in this world I’m doing right, it’s being their mom. And that’s all I can ask for, and that’s all I want in this life.”
