It could be said that the word "miracle" is overused in today’s society. But when a baby is born with most of his skull and brain missing and survives, it’s hard to call it anything but.

Jaxon Emmett Buell just celebrated his first birthday, despite doctors offering his parents the opportunity to terminate the pregnancy after discovering his condition through an ultrasound.

Brandon, Jaxon’s father, told the Daily Mail that he and his wife Brittany knew something was wrong when the ultrasound technician went very quiet after looking at Jaxon’s head.

“Brittany got the call the next day from the doctors saying there was a concern with the MRI results,” he said. “She was in tears and told me there was an issue with the baby.”

Jaxon was diagnosed tentatively with anencephaly, a disorder resulting from a neural tube defect that causes the absence of a major portion of the skull, brain, and scalp. The couple was transferred between several doctors, and given multiple possibilities for what had caused Jaxon’s condition. The couple, being devoutly Christian, decided not to terminate the pregnancy despite Jaxon’s terrible odds for survival.

“Who are we to decide?” Brandon said. “We were given a child, we are given a chance and we have to be his voice. We did everything we could to give him a fighting chance and all he’s done since being born is fight right back.”

Jaxon
Jaxon made it into the world, but doctors were still not optimistic about his chances of survival. Facebook

After Jaxon was born, he was finally given a true diagnosis — microhydranencephaly, a severe brain malfunction that affects one in 4,859 babies in the U.S. every year. The baby was given medication that has helped his condition, but wasn’t cheap. Brandon’s coworkers set up a GoFundMe page to help the family out, and have raised almost $55,000 since Jaxon’s birth. The baby has also been nicknamed Jax Strong on social media, where his story has inspired over 150,000 “likes.”

“It’s all been so overwhelming in a positive way because we can’t go anywhere without someone stopping us and saying, ‘Hey, what’s your story?’ or they would have seen his picture and say, ‘Hey, look: It’s Jax Strong!” Brittany said. “It’s truly incredible the amount of people he has had an impact on.”