MILWAUKEE - Ashley Koch and Matt Buck open the little blue box and lose themselves in the photographs of their son. They linger over every one, every glimpse of his tiny fingers and toes, of him cradled in his mother's arms.

But one image captures that day more than any other.

In it, Matt has just kissed Ashley and rests his head against hers. He tenderly holds her chin as a tear rolls down her face.

We do not see what's outside the frame, at the foot of the bed, where a nurse tends to their stillborn son.

Landen Elliott Buck was delivered Dec. 21, 2007, 2 ½ months early and a day after doctors discovered his heart no longer beating.

Except for their memories and a few keepsakes, these black and white portraits are all this young couple has of the life they created.

"There's nothing I could ever say to describe what it means to Matt and me, because other people get to bring their little babies home, and we get pictures," Koch said at her home three weeks after burying their son.

"This is six months of waiting and planning and growing - pictures and a gravestone. And that's really hard," she said. "But I'm just so thankful that I have this."

The photographs were the gift of Sara Chapman of Kaukauna, Wis., one of nearly 40 photographers in Wisconsin and 3,000 around the world who've signed up with the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation to offer bereavement portraits at no cost to families who have lost or are losing a baby.

The sessions are an emotional experience for the photographers as well as the families, and many see the work as a calling.

"I feel like it's my mission, my ministry. I need to do this," said Sarah Baldwin, a photographer and mother of five who has photographed numerous babies at Wheaton-Franciscan All-Saints Medical Center St. Mary's Campus in Racine, Wis., since July 2006.

"I totally believe all of these babies are miracles of God."

Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep was founded in memory of Maddux Achilles Haggard, who died in February 2005 of a condition that left him unable to breathe, swallow or move on his own.

Before removing Maddux from life support, Cheryl and Michael Haggard arranged for photographer Sandy Puc' of Littleton, Colo., to take portraits of them with their newborn son.

"We wanted images of him as he was, as we knew him" with the wires and the tubes that connected him to life, Cheryl Haggard said. "But we asked if she would stay until after he'd passed, and she couldn't say no."

Cheryl Haggard recalls Maddux's death as the worst day of her life.

"But when I look at those pictures, I don't feel that. I feel the love we have for him and the blessing he continues to be in our lives," she said.

Two months later, Cheryl Haggard and Puc' founded Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, which connects families with photographers in their communities and educates hospitals and medical professionals about its services.

Photographing loved ones in death not new

Bereavement photography is not new. Photographing loved ones in death, particularly children, became commonplace in the 19th century with the invention of the daguerreotype. And for years, nurses have photographed dead and dying infants for parents in the hopes of helping them through their grief.

"We take pictures whether parents ask for them or not," said Jennifer Fredricksen, who helped to deliver Landen Buck. "I can't tell you how many times families come back later and say they want them."

Fredricksen speaks from experience, and it's one of the reasons she became a labor and delivery nurse.

When her own son Brody was delivered stillborn in October 1991, no one prepared her for what to expect.

"I was so afraid, I wasn't even going to hold him," she said.

"Then I heard this nurse talking to him from behind a curtain where she was cleaning him, saying, 'You are such a beautiful little boy, such a perfect little boy,"' said Fredricksen.

That changed her mind.

"I told my husband later that night that I will do for someone someday what she did for me," said Fredricksen, who began nursing school a few years later.

Fredricksen's thankful for the few Polaroids the nurses took of Brody that day, and for that one nurse in particular, who helped her say goodbye to her son.

To this day, she knows her name and where she works, though they've never met again.

"I'm just so grateful to her," Fredricksen said, her voice breaking at the memory. "If it hadn't been for her, I'd have never held my son."

Like the nurses, the photographers who work through Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep encourage the families that it's OK to want these photographs.

"Some people might think it's morbid, but it's not," Baldwin said.

"That baby is part of their family, and when they're done grieving, they're going to want to celebrate that life."