'Guardian Angel' Finds Twins

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

But the healthy newborn babies found inside at a church on Chicago'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 church custodian Kenneth Green Wednesday.

He'd come to put candles in place for Christmas services, reports Mike Puccinelli of CBS station WBBM in Chicago.

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.

At first, Green told Puccinelli, he thought there was just one baby in the carrier, swaddled in a blanket and dressed in blue.

Green showed secretary Hope Drummond what he'd found, Puccinelli says. She unwrapped the blanket, and that's when she and Green saw there were two newborns, not one.

Green says he feels blessed to have been chosen as the twins' guardian angel. "It makes me feel … in the heart, feeling good," Green remarked to Puccinelli.

Green and Drummond took the carrier to the North Austin Head Start School, which is attached to the church.

"The custodian and the secretary brought the carrier to me and said, 'We have a Christmas present for you,' said Doris Holden, the director of the school."I thought they were joking. But I opened the carrier and uncovered (the babies') faces and saw them. I was in shock, total shock. I just started crying."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 Holden. "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."

Offers of assistance and adoption were rolling in from as far away as California.

Employees at the hospital said phones there were ringing constantly.

And a spokeswoman for the Adoption Information Center of Illinois said about 20 people called about the twins Thursday.

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.