Looking for the stories that matter most to Central Texas, I'm Jerry Kihanal, host of the Austin Signal, your daily dive into the news, music, sports, and culture shaping life in Austin.

We bring you reporting from trusted voices at KUT, KUTX, Texas Standard, and more all in one place. Tune in, stay informed, and get connected every day on the Austin Signal. Austin Signal, weekdays at one on KUT News, or on demand at KUT.org, or wherever you get your podcasts. Many loving families have been formed through adoption, but there's no escaping the reality

that every adoption starts with a certain amount of grief

and loss. For a long time, secrecy was part of that loss for adoptees and birth parents

who were never able to learn anything about their biological kin, let alone have any contact.

Open adoptions are supposed to make things better, but they don't always play out the way families expect at the beginning.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

Legal adoption gives adoptive parents all the rights to make decisions for their children, including how much contact, if any, they will have with their birth parents.

And as my guest,

an adoptee herself, has learned through her reporting, even when there are plans in the beginning for ongoing relationships between adopted children and their biological relatives, a lot can

change in 18 years. And what starts as an open adoption can function very much like a closed one if the parents

want it that way. Nicole Chung is a writer. Her books include all you can ever know and a living

remedy. Her article for The Atlantic is called When Adoption Promises are Broken. Nicole, welcome

back to think. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here. You share that you were

adopted in the early 80s in a closed adoption. When you were growing up, what were you able to know about

your origins? I knew almost nothing, really. So unlike many Korean-American adoptees, I was born here. My birth parents were recent

immigrants to the Seattle area at the time I was born. And then they placed me so in a domestic

infant adoption. I was relinquished around birth. And then my adoption wasn't finalized for like six to 12 months after but I went

home with my adoptive parents at the age of two and a half months and from that point onward like

there was no contact at all between birth and adoptive families I grew up not even knowing my

birth parents names I didn't really know anything about them or their

reasons for relinquishment. And so it was something I was always curious about, right? But there

...