Newborn twins found abandoned at Chicago church

CHICAGO -- Nobody knows where they came from, who their mother is or when exactly they were born.

But the healthy newborn babies found inside a church on the city's West Side four days before Christmas now have names: Mary and Joseph.

"That's terrific," said the Rev. Thetis Cromie of North Austin Lutheran Church. "You can bet that I'll be saying something about Joseph and Mary during my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day sermons."

The twins were discovered by a custodian at the church during his regular morning rounds on Wednesday.

After hearing a small noise inside the unlocked front door, he looked over to an area of the vestibule next to a wall heater and spotted a blue-and-white baby carrier. There, swaddled in a blanket and dressed in blue outfits were a baby boy and a baby girl.

The custodian, Kenneth Green, told Hope Drummond, a secretary, and the two took the carrier to the North Austin Head Start School, which is attached to the church.

The babies were warm and their diapers were clean, suggesting they hadn't been in the church too long. And one of them spit up after they were found, said Doris Holden, the director of the school. "So they had been fed, too," she said.

Both had umbilical cords that had apparently been cut with scissors and the stump of Joseph's cord had started to dry, suggesting he was born two or three days earlier.

The babies were taken to a local hospital where on Thursday they were listed in good condition, with Joseph weighing in at 6 pounds, 6 ounces and Mary at 5 pounds.

"They're doing very well -- active, good color, doing all the things they're supposed to be doing," said Dr. Steven Ross, the emergency room physician who examined them at West Suburban Medical Center.

"They are just adorable," said Molly Gaus, spokeswoman at the hospital. "As soon as you put them together, they calm down."

The twins' mother has not been located, Chicago Police spokesman John Mirabelli said Thursday.

In Illinois, under the "safe haven" law, parents can leave unharmed babies, three days old or younger, at a hospital, emergency medical center, police station or staffed fire station. A church does not qualify as a safe haven, and authorities said the parents could be prosecuted. But Mirabelli said authorities will take into consideration the intent of whoever left the babies.

Drummond, who has two children, said choosing the church as a place to put the babies says something about the intent of whoever did so.

"I'm sure whoever the parent is, she thought about her children enough to put them in a place that she thought would be safe," she said.

Ross, the emergency room doctor, agreed. "I'm glad the mother at least made an effort to put them in a place where they could be found quickly, rather than a Dumpster," he said. "So, I think it's a happy ending."

About the only disappointment, and it's small one, might belong to Green, the janitor who found the babies.

The hospital has decided that given the season, maybe Mary and Joseph were better names than the ones Green picked out: Kenneth and Kennetha Hope.

"We're sorry, Kenneth," Gaus said.