. The way someone is grieving is stigmatised such as an extreme response to the grief or not appearing to grieve enough. (Doka, 2002)

This has been echoed throughout the works of Evelyn Robinson, who discovered that the nature of the loss felt by the birth mother was also felt by the adopted child. Robinson felt that this grief experienced from the separation from their families and being issued with a replacement birth certificate has also traditionally not been acknowledged or understood (Robinson, 2018). Robinson goes on to say that by replacing the birth certificate for a child we do not value that child’s actual heritage and identity. (Robinson, 2018). Robinson (2018) also states that most of the adopted children have extended family and adoption denies that those relationships exist. It is clear from Robinson’s work that she takes a lot from her own personal experience and while it is interesting it is somewhat anecdotal, that being said there is little literature available that disputes her claims. Doka (1989) states that most of the losses we experience are not due to physical death and that the feelings of bereaved people (sadness, guilt etc) can be complicated when grief is disenfranchised (Doka 1989) (Robinson 2007).

I currently have two clients (C and N) that have experienced children being adopted, neither client had a choice in their adoption as social services stepped in to remove the children from a violent and somewhat toxic (drug and alcohol use) family dynamic. Both clients were pregnant at the beginning of therapy, and are able to keep their babies with them once they are born. The client I will be focusing on first (C) will have her baby soon. This particular client had to have a termination of her first baby (girl) due to the baby having Edwards Syndrome a genetic disorder, also known as Trisomy 18, caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 18th chromosome. The majority of people with the syndrome die during the fetal stage; infants who survive experience serious defects and commonly live for short periods of time (Weiss, 2014). She shut down emotionally after the baby died and went on to have another daughter very quickly and has often mentioned that she wanted to have another baby to fill the void that the terminated baby left. She often suffers nightmares where her surviving daughter either dies or is abused and feels immense guilt upon waking. She is worried about social services involvement and postnatal depression which she developed after her first baby. When her baby was diagnosed with Edwards syndrome she had 12 hours to make a decision, she chose to terminate the pregnancy and feels that she made the right choice at the time. During her first pregnancy, she was involved in a domestic violence relationship with the father of her children, who then went to prison with she was pregnant with her son. She feels guilty about staying in the relationship but at the time felt it was important that the children had their father in their life. She