One of the worst imaginable things is to be separated from those you love. Some parents are in prison, others lose their right to see their children for years. They were not granted visitation rights by a judge. In abuse cases, one parent may ask that the abuser refrain indefinitely from seeing their child.
Clients enter family counseling, mourning this contact. Of course they miss seeing their children grow up. Still they can maintain and grow in their identity as a mother or father. A wise friend of mine, miscarried a child and never was able to have another child. But in those months of carrying a child, she became a mother. Her tenderness and her outlook towards others changed forever, even though she never had physical contact (well, contact outside) with her child. Still, she identifies as a mother.