Joanna Freyja was the formal name her mother and father preferred; she was not a mythical character, but she had mystical powers. Her mother Marguerite would soon be there and would not be calling her Bobbi or Roberta. Roberta (Bobbi) was a name she had chosen to distance herself from the recognition of her Norwegian heritage and folklore.

Joanna was across from Max; she shook as though she was scared for him. “Marci, I love you, but I don’t know if you can accept what I need to tell you?”

There was a knock at Joanna’s door; it was Marguerite Frigg Freyja, Joanna’s mother. She quickly asked her daughter, “Do you know if he/she can handle it?” She smiled, “I can feel how strongly you love her. I know Marci can handle what it might take, but she might not want to; it will be hard on her. Marci has dreamed she could be your spouse, but I will impregnate her with his sperm and your egg. Your daughter will have mystical powers which will strain Marci’s body near to death.”

Joanna said, “No, Mother you mustn’t!”

Marguerite said, “Your love for Marci is too strong, you couldn’t resist intimacy with her, over time it would lead to a child. She would be open to you; she loves you dearly and you have helped her to embrace herself. She felt your powers when you made love with her and sensed who you were. She will not fully understand for years from now. But she will feel the pain and trauma of carrying your baby and going through labor.”

With fear Bobbi asked, “But Mother can you assure me it will not kill her?”

“I could, but will not. It will test her body’s strength and her love for you and the woman she desires to be.” Her Mother asked Joanna to call Marci.

Joanna was shaken with a stirring of emotion and the powers within her when she came into the room. “Marci, I have put off telling you something. You felt part of it when we made love.”

“My Mother has arrived and will speak to you about us. You will understand a fraction of what she has to say. Please don't lightly agree.”

I say, “What we have is beautiful; you have helped me to realize more than I could have imagined.”

She dressed as Max thinking it proper and was more eager than afraid to be in her future Mother-in-Law’s presence and to hear what she had to say. Yet as Max entered the front room he felt the presence of something awesome.

Marguerite said, “I will address you as Marci. It is both as you dream and what will be required of your love with Joanna. You have correctly come to know she is Freyja in name and in spirit. I am glad she has met the one she has longed to be united with. You are and will remain fully human, but you will in time bear your daughter who will be her daughter with all the mystical powers of a Freyja. It will take all you have in bearing her. She will be born healthy.”

I am now speaking, “I can’t imagine what you are saying can be true, but I am willing and excited. My only request is that Joanna and our daughter would be good in using their powers.”

Marguerite said, “It will be so, though you might question as you do in the world if it is good.” Marguerite gave an earring to her daughter that she was to put on the upper ridge of my ear as a sign of our engagement.

We’re all soon in a normal conversation with only the simple understanding that we are engaged. Marci turns to Joanna, “You have made me the happiest person possible. Is it okay that I tell my parents and Aya?” Marci waits for Joanna’s agreement. “I need to find a suitable jewelry store to buy you and engagement ring.”

“If Jerry wouldn’t object to Aya helping you; you might ask her to go along and help you,” suggests Bobbi.

Marci asks, “Did you tell Aya that we were getting engaged?”

Bobbi says, “She knew I was moving in that direction, and that I was asking you Marci. It should make it easier for Jerry to accept that you are not a threat to him concerning where Aya is.”

Bobbi’s mother says, “It is Norwegian custom to have family and friends hold a large feast for you two to announce your coming marriage. Aya and Jerry are invited, as well as your family Marci. You might invite Joanna’s workers, some customers, and close friends.”

Marguerite says, “My understanding in this state you are free to marry as two women. Johann will not be happy about that, but when you provide a grandchild, he will be more understanding. If he is not, I will bring him to understand.”

Max soon begins living 24/7 as Marci, and Aya is more than happy to go with Marci to pick a ring for Joanna. Aya and I go to Newberry where there are some good jewelry stores to choose rings. Aya was able to convince me that the wedding ring for Joanna would be of much more importance to Joanna’s tradition. Marci and Aya hunted several stores until an 18k fairmined spiral wedding ring was chosen. It was from what they said an exceptional ring. Aya convinced me that Bobbi would be very happy with it.

Aya took me to dinner, where we were happily opening our lives to each other. Aya agrees to stand with me for my ceremony with Joanna. Jerry has even agreed for M & M Enterprises to keep records, books, and taxes for them.

I began to call Bobbi, Joanna more often, especially when Marguerite and Johann were there. The feast soon happens; family and our guests are happy with the gathering and our news.

Marguerite took me for three days where she took sperm from Max so she could impregnate numerous eggs from Joanna.

It was a hot day in the end of August when we were married. I have a white satin and lace suit and Joanna wears a full-length satin and lace wedding gown. It is a month later after a night of hot passionate sex Marguerite had her daughter plant an impregnated egg into me. Bobbi went out of her way to woo me and keep me relatively calm for three more days. I mention I am passionately warm and content. It was early November after mornings of being sick. That Doctor Jayne Cunning announces that I’m pregnant. She asked me, “Did you know that you have a womb? Have you ever bled before?”

I acknowledge I had discharges of blood every other month since the turn of the year. Dr. Jayne said, “The baby is unusually strong for this early in your pregnancy. I recommend walks and a good diet to keep your heart and you healthy. I suspect carrying such a healthy child may be taxing on you.” The morning sickness went well into the fifth month.

Max had eaten fish, but never as much as I as Marci am eating now. It is Bobbi’s passionate love that distracts me and helps me through the coming days, weeks, and months.

I’m becoming more domestic, I’m baking, when I’m not cooking meals. I’m cleaning around our house. It had been Joanna’s house, but as I cleaned around and established my office here. The house gradually becomes ours. I’ve moved my horses to Bobbi’s ranch in a new stable area attached to hers. My stable has a state-of-the-art office, and stables for Sally, her new foal, and Storm.

There came a time when Aya is on an extended search and rescue mission and Marci and Bobbi were taking care of Elena. Max is in radio contact with Aya when Aya’s search horse falls and hurts the two of them.

Supposedly, they were not far from a road, which gave me the thought I could help. They are some seventy miles away, but I know the country. Aya is near enough to the stranded person she is looking for that she’s unwilling to stop or turn around.

I have taken both horses, Sally and Storm, with me. It took three hours for me to travel and find Aya’s vehicle and trailer. I called back to Joanna to tell her the general area where I was. Joanna is against me taking risks as I’m in ny fourth month of pregnancy.

Once I’m determined I will venture out; Joanna tells me, “If you see a golden glow that is the way you are to go. It doesn’t mean it is safe, you need to use all your winter country life skills.”

There are two times I’m not sure the direction to go, but a golden beam shows up once and a golden glow precedes my making vocal contact with Aya. Once together we find her lost camper at a deserted shelter. Aya can give coordinates to others in the search. We were able to bind Aya’s horse’s hurt leg. But I needed to go back, get Sally my other horse, and supplies, and return. On my way back I felt a warmth in my body that energized me. I knew I was burning extra calories but I felt safe. The trips back to the truck and trailer and then back to the shelter were shorter as I knew the way. By the time I was back to Aya and Jason the lost person; rescue snowmobiles came from another direction. They were able to take Jason out with them; along with his equipment. Aya would ride Sally with a lead to pull her horse. I was leading with Storm. I was getting chilled and tired as we found our way back up to the road and to the trucks and horse trailers.

Back forty miles there’s a café-lodge where we stopped. Aya had asked, “Marci, how in the world did you find us?” She was skeptical of the story I told; until she called Bobbi and received information that supported what I had said.

I am exhausted, and because of the child I’m carrying, I decided to stay overnight at the lodge. Aya wouldn’t leave me so we stayed and shared the same room. I and Aya, became united as sisters that night. We did not sleep in the same bed or get intimate. Aya talked to the child in my womb, “Dearest little one; you are richly blessed. I know both your mothers, they will love you and raise you to be strong in mind and spirit.” I and Aya became sisters, friends, with a new love as sisters.

Aya told me how she talked to her children when they were still in the womb. She insisted Jerry do the same. After the babies were born; it seemed to her that the babies recognized Jerry’s voice as well as hers. She had many photos of her children that she shared with me. She showed one of Elena, “I remember on her second birth that I looked at her in the picture and cried that I would never be able to introduce her to you. Her spirit reminded me strongly of you.”

I said, “If I did a small part in saving you tonight, it will be a joyous blessing I hold dear.”

Aya called to her husband who was elated to hear her voice and know she was safe.

I called Bobbi to let her know that Aya, the baby, and I were safe. Bobbi told me, “Find a place to stay over, and do not come back tonight.” We talked and Bobbi heard that I was able to see her mother’s guidance. “I am glad you have the sense to stay there tonight.”

Bobbi wanted to talk to Aya to make certain, I and the baby were fine.

We returned to Bobbi’s ranch late the next morning, where Aya stayed long enough to see Bobbi cuddle and whisk me away into the house. Bobbi was out soon enough to have one of her workers follow Aya to make sure she got home safely. That night was the first night that I felt my baby move inside of me.

I kissed my wedding ring and was assured our marriage was consummated.

The coming days, brought word that Jerry Long acknowledged that he was indebted to me for saving his wife. Marci/Max were now welcomed guests to their home. Elena had bonded with Marci and Bobbi and is calling us aunts. Her brother Connor is soon doing the same. Soon, a sawdust trail joined the two roads separating our families.

Scott, Max’s neighbor, works for me in the business as well as on Max’s acreage. Well into the rodeo season; Scott helps me to staff M & M Enterprises at various fair sights and to meet customers. I’m doing most of the work as it is easier for me to explain my business relating to new and present customers.

M & M Enterprises during the past year has become a solid and growing business. I have recently been training Aya in the business. It will give me a backup for when the baby comes. And Aya's income as she ponders Search and Rescue as a career. Joanna has been informing me and Aya that my birthing the baby is likely to be stressful, if not problematic.

Marguerite Freyja, and Beth Schneider, my Mom, are now very alert and caring of me and my unborn child. The estrogen-driven women surrounding me are both helpful and overwhelming. There is a barrage of names for the baby being tossed about, but by the last few weeks, Joanna and I have already chosen Ebbe Joanna if the baby looks more like Joanna, and Ebbe Marcella if she looks more like me. The kicks and movement of little Ebbe have tossed me out of bed or off my feet twice.

Dr. Jayne Cunning has delivery privileges at the Orange County Medical Center; where I now go weekly to appointments. The idea of me laying back and spreading my legs is comical to me. I had long imagined Max being there for my spouse. That he/she is the one who has a vagina feeling the weight of a child is both beautiful and scary.

It is the evening of the 5th of July that labor pains get so hard that it sends a false alarm that causes us to get to the hospital. My blood pressure is high, my heart rate flocculates and I am kept at the hospital. I’m told by Dr. Cunning, “I fear for the well-being of your baby and your life Marci. If we get to the point where either is in danger, I will deliver the baby caesarian.”

It’s four in the morning after a calm hour that things take a critical and hurried turn and the birth is imminent; a golden haze that only I can see comes over me. I am listening to Dr. Jayne and talking to my baby or Bobbi. I scream, “Ebbe I love you!” The ‘you’ is a wholehearted scream to itself. I am exhausted as I hear my baby cry. Feelings of love and joy wash over her with a new alertness that belies, my exhaustion.

They took Ebbe away to be clean and swaddled in her first dippy; I closed my eyes to open them to Bobbi saying, “Ebbe Marcella has both of us in her.” The two grandmothers agreed Ebbe had a stronger likeness to me. Dr. Jayne comes in to tell the grandmothers they can’t all be in here at the same time. “Marci had a stressful two weeks; followed by a stressful delivery. We will be watching her as closely as their daughter Ebbe…” “We lost her vital signs for a moment, but something pulled her back to this side.”

Joanna and I look to Marguerite, who says, “She’s a strong Mama, what more needs to be said.”

To be continued…