Allison Janney’s visit to a fertility doctor when she was in her 40s shocked her, the West Wing actress revealed.
Janney, now 66, said she was surprised to hear from a fertility specialist that she would have difficulty having children. The Oscar-winning actress was candid about her experience on Monica Lewinsky’s podcast.
Janney explained that she always knew she “never wanted to have kids,” but decided to find out if it was a possibility at all.
“The first I heard that I wouldn’t be able to have a kid at 40-something was in this fertility doctor’s office. She was like, ‘The odds are not in your favor,’” she told Lewinsky.
“I was sort of under the impression that women could have kids till they were 50 or something,” Janney continued. “I don’t know why.”
She added that the doctor asked her why her partner at the time didn’t accompany her to the appointment. “The guy that I was with, he didn’t even come with me, and I was like, ‘I guess that is a sign, isn’t it?’”
The Diplomat star has never married or had children. “I always thought I would get married, just because at the time I was growing up, that’s what you did,” she said, adding later, “It didn’t happen for me.”
Janney said she had a string of long-term relationships since moving to New York in her 20s to train at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. One relationship lasted eight years; another ten years. Later, in her mid-30s, Janney was in a four-year relationship and decided to “try to have kids now.”
“And then it was apparent to me that this wasn’t the man that I wanted to have kids with,” she revealed. “So, I was like, ‘OK, well, I guess that didn’t happen.’”
The Mom star reflected on that relationship, saying, “The way you feel in a relationship that you know is probably not the one and you’re kind of in it and you don’t know how to get out of it—that’s the most lonely feeling in the world to be with someone and feel alone. Oh my God, that’s awful.”
Janney was in a relationship with actor Dennis Gagomiros from 1994 to 2001. She began dating actor Richard Jenik in 2002, getting engaged two years later but ultimately ending the relationship in 2006. Janney then dated production manager Philip Joncas in 2012, and they dated for nearly five years.
The acclaimed actress has previously been open about her decision to not have children, making it apparent that she does not regret this choice.
“I would rather regret not having kids than have kids and regret that,” she said on The Drew Barrymore Show in 2021. “I’m OK with it.”
