'I'm walking!' Four-year-old girl with cerebral palsy takes first steps

Defying doctors' expectations, a four-year-old Michigan girl with cerebral palsy has taken her first steps ever, all by herself. 

Little Maya, affectionately called "Mighty Miss Maya" by her family, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of one. 

She learned to walk with the assistance of a walker, and then underwent a major spinal procedure, selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) surgery, on May 9.

Doctors told the family it could take six months to a year for Maya to be able to walk on her own after the surgery, but her mother captured the magical moment Maya began to walk on her own just seven weeks after the surgery, and the little girl couldn't believe it herself. "I'm walking!" Maya exclaims on video. "I'm walking! Yes!" 

"I even took a big step!" she says. “She’s doing it. You’ve done it for like a minute,” the girl’s brother can be heard saying in the video.

The video was posted this week on the family's Instagram account "Mighty Miss Maya," with the caption "4 years, 10 months. I can't even put into words how we are feeling. Nothing seems to fit the enormity of this moment for us."