On the living room wall is a photo montage of the Dendy children.

There are many photos of Madeleine and Lola. Madeleine, who is now 3, is full of laughter and a child's need to run and play. Lola, the youngest, is a cautious, but curious girl with strawberry blonde curls.

But the wall started with Wyatt. He was born June 5, 2003, and died the same day.

"We were not given any reason to believe he would live," Mandy Dendy said.

The Dendys lost their first baby because of a congenital birth defect. October is pregnancy and infant loss awareness month and Medcenter One and St. Alexius Medical Center will have services this month for families who have lost a baby.

The dire outlook for the Dendys came after Mandy Dendy had her first ultrasound. There was little amniotic fluid and it was difficult to check his development with the ultrasound. She saw doctors here and in Minneapolis. It was assumed it was Potter syndrome, which is a condition that is caused by the lack of kidneys.

Mandy and her husband, Charles Dendy, continued preparing for his birth and his death. Charles made him a casket and Mandy crocheted him a blanket. They ordered a headstone and made funeral plans. When he was born, many generations of the Mandy and Charles Dendy family were there to see Wyatt. They took photos, videos and everyone held him.

"In his entire brief life, he was in the arms of someone who loved him," Mandy Dendy said.

Families can approach the birth of a baby who has died in different ways, said Jackie Wilke, St. Alexius women's services clinical coordinator. She helps arrange social services, pastoral care and provides information to the parents from the time the baby has died.

"It (the birth) should be a happy time," Wilke said. "When a baby dies, it is like their dreams have been crushed. They are angry, sad, wondering why God did this to me, but they didn't do anything."

Sometimes parents want family members around, while other parents want time alone with the baby if it died or was stillborn, before they have visitors, Wilke said. The parents can touch and hold their baby. The family can take pictures, and the hospital staff takes a foot and hand print. If the baby has hair, a lock is saved.

"We treat it as if it were a live birth," Wilke said.

The essence of Wyatt's life lasted beyond his death. The fall after his death, the Dendys planted a weeping willow tree in the back yard of their home. They put a toy at his grave for his birthday and Christmas. Sometimes the family goes there and has a picnic. This helps Mandy and Charles Dendy stay close to his memory and help their daughters know him.

"Her (Madeleine's) comprehension is that he lives in the woods," Mandy Dendy said. Wyatt is buried in a cemetery in Mandan that is near trees. They go out there to change the grave decorations with the seasons.

Family members send items for the flower bed under the tree or the grave. It makes Mandy Dendy feel good that people remember him. She likes to talk about him. Like any child, he has changed her life. She still grieves for him, in different ways.

"He changed who I am, the core of who I was," she said.

Before Wyatt was born, they worked with Burnie Kunz, the Medcenter One chaplain. She helped arrange a priest to be in the room when Wyatt was born and for him to be baptized. Kunz told them about Medcenter's Garden of Peace. The Dendys have his name on a statue in Fairview Cemetery.

"Aside from the cemetery where he is buried, it is a place Ifeel close to him because of the love that went into it," Mandy Dendy said.

Medcenter and St. Alexius offer burial services, but families can opt to use a funeral home and go to another cemetery. Both hospitals hold an annual service for families who have lost a baby. St. Alexius' service is 10 a.m. Oct. 13 at St. Mary's Cemetery. Medcenter's service is at Christmas time.

Medcenter will have a special service Sunday because of a new feature in its plot. An "Angel of Hope" statue was added recently. This is based on the book "The Christmas Box," by Richard Paul Evans, in which a woman mourns the loss of a child at the base of an angel statue.

A dedication ceremony for the statue is 2 p.m. Sunday at Fairview Cemetery for the families who have had babies die. The hospital hosts an annual service for the families in December where they give the family an ornament with the child's name on it. The ornament is hung on a tree, then the family is later given the ornament.

"They read off his name and we hang the ornament on this white tree. I cry every year," Mandy Dendy said. "We have so few opportunities to remember him. It's a safe place, too. Everyone has lost a child."