In fall 1975, Karen and I were well into our third year of marriage and we decided it was time to add to our family. I was a second-year student at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, and we lived in an apartment on campus. Besides that I had two part-time jobs; I worked as the audiovisual coordinator for the seminary, and as a photographer for the local hospital. Karen worked full-time and provided most of our support. 

At the time of these announcements Karen was between full-time jobs; she was working part-time for me in the audiovisual department while looking for her next full-time job.

The audiovisual department was in a sectioned-off area of a parking garage on the Fuller campus. Not too classy, but I kind of liked it. It was from this office that these calls were made. I rigged up something to record them, and saved the calls on a cassette tape.

These calls were made sometime in the fall, and Jennifer was born in July of 1976.

She called all of the relatives, of course, but I didn’t figure out how to record both ends of the conversation until we got to the above people. 

I include the short conversation with Chris (Karen’s sister-in-law) in the second clip above because of what she tells Karen – that she thought she might be expecting as well. And that her baby might also be born in July! As it turned out, she was pregnant with twins, and they were born in June, so they’re a month older than Jennifer.