A few years ago, judges sat in skepticism on The X Factor Ukraine’s auditions as a pregnant woman stepped out onto the stage. Though the 25-year-old was dressed to the nines and ready to do her part, it was clear that the judges were only seeing one thing; her big ol’ pregnant belly.

That wouldn’t be the case for long, though.

To anyone who would scoff at the woman’s gesture, they should know that it takes a mountain of courage to take the stage in front of perfect strangers. Especially to lay your heart bare in a masterpiece song. Unlike The Voice, where judges listen to contestants sing blindly so they can’t judge on appearance, The X Factor allows judges to watch the entire performance.

As soon as the pregnant woman stepped on stage, she was getting some awkward looks from the judges.

When the first few notes of her song choice rang out, Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing”, there’s dead silence from the judges. The silence, though, is deafening. They couldn’t believe she was going to attempt this song.

Contestants have made bold song choices like this before, but not during late-stage pregnancy.

Anyone who picks an epic song to perform does so knowing one thing; they had better nail it.

The audience sat in silent expectation as the woman slowly began to sing out the first verse of the song. Her voice was audibly beautiful from the moment she opened her mouth. As her song filled the air and people were roped in, the judges sat stone-faced, waiting out the higher peaks of the hit.

An epic 90s ballad, the song ‘I Have Nothing’ was originally penned by Linda Thompson and David Foster for the blockbuster movie The Bodyguard. Whitney Houston was the female lead and performs the song flawlessly in the movie.

With such a huge pop-icon bellowing out the song in a hit movie, there’s double the pressure to hit every note right. The pregnant woman seemed to know it though and brought her A-game.

She managed to impress the crowd as she moved through the soaring notes of the song. Each note rang out seemingly effortlessly, and pitch-perfect.

While it may have seemed like the pregnant woman belted the song out with ease, that’s just not the case.

According to the NY Times, singing a song like this while that far along is extremely difficult, at best, if not next to impossible.

“Growing babies crowd the lungs and diaphragm, and the flood of estrogen and other hormones that comes with pregnancy can make vocal cords swell and vibrate differently. More effort is necessary, too. Expectant women have to exhale with added force to get vocal cords to vibrate and get the sound out,” their article reads.

If it was difficult for the pregnant woman to belt out the tune, we didn’t know it!

Not only did she nail every single note, but she also kept a calm, open posture. Unbelievably, she looks like she’s even managing to actually enjoy her big moment on the stage. There is no doubt that she came to prove her worth as a singer when she took center-stage.

Needless to say, the pregnant woman impressed all of the judges BIG TIME!

The female judge was even so blown away by her performance that she began running up to hug the singer before she had even finished the song. And the judges weren’t the only ones who were impressed by it, either.

After being uploaded to Youtube, the pregnant woman’s audition has been viewed close to 13 million times already. She may not have won XFactor that year, but she definitely became a star nonetheless.

To see her epic rendition of ‘I Have Nothing’, watch the video below.

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H/T: Shareably