I enjoy celebrity podcasts when they drop some old school gossip or confirm rumors. Random personal stories of something crazy that once happened to them are always fun, too. On the most recent episode of her podcast, I Choose Me, Jennie Garth told a story from that last category.
Jennie and her daughter Fiona, 18, did a “Mommy and Me” advice episode before Fiona went away to college. The first question that they took was from a young listener asking how she should talk to her mother about getting on birth control. In response, Jennie told a story from when her mom took her to get on the pill as a teen. Jennie prefaced the story by describing it as “terrible/funny/awkward” She was not exaggerating.
The Beverly Hills, 90210 alum shared that she’d gone to a sexual health clinic with her mother, saying “it was to go on birth control because I had irregular periods.” However, the truth was that “I had a boyfriend, and I just wanted to be safe,” Garth explained. “I didn’t want to have a baby without being ready for it. So we went in, and the appointment was to explore birth control options.”
She shared that after submitting a urine sample, she and her mother were waiting in the exam room when the clinician walked in. “My mom and I are just waiting for what she’s gonna say. And she says, ‘Well, you’re pregnant.’ And I was like, ‘What?’ And then all of a sudden, like, the cat was out of the bag.”
“Was the boyfriend my dad?” Fiona, the youngest of three daughters Garth shares with ex Peter Facinelli, asked.
“No, it was before your dad,” Garth said, explaining, “I was instantly just, like, red all over. I was hot, like, sweaty. Like, I didn’t know what to do because I had — in that moment — to be honest with my mom, in the most uncomfortable situation, about the fact that I had already had sex and that I had been lying to her about it.”
“That was a lot more traumatic and dramatic than if I had just gone to her and talked to her about it, I think,” Garth said, saying “I, too, was really scared to talk to my mom about [having sex] to the point where I actually lied and hid the truth from her.”
“Don’t you wanna know if I had a baby or not?” Garth interjected, prompting Fiona to admit she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear it.
“It was someone else’s urine test,” Garth said. “So cut to me and my mom having this emotional, like, breakdown, and they left the room. It was just me and my mom and, like, truth time.”
But then the clinician came back in, and as Garth told them, “ ‘Oh, oops. That was not your pee. That was someone else’s pee.’ “
“I was furious,” Garth said.
“The truth always comes out,” Fiona said.
Garth wrapped up the conversation by sharing that she thinks “it’s important to open up the channels of discussion … there’s nothing you shouldn’t talk to your mom about. There’s no shame around it. It’s a natural thing, and it deserves feeling comfortable.”
”The truth always comes out.” I mean…can you even imagine? That is an awful mixup. As dramatic as it sounds, I probably would have just prayed for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. (This would have been my response to any lie I was caught in, let alone something that big.) It’s clear from listening to their interactions that Jennie has a very trusting, open relationship with her daughters. Fiona actually answered the question first, and she was candid and thoughtful about her experience asking her mom about going on birth control. I love that Jennie has created such a safe environment for her three daughters. So many girls and young women are not that fortunate.
I’m trying to be more open with my two boys than my own parents were with me. My older son just started middle school. At his yearly physical, his health screening questions included things like, “Have you ever had sex?” Mr. Rosie had taken him, and he was not expecting that line of questioning. In the moment, he asked him, “Do you know what that is?” My son nodded, and we ended up talking to him about it later on. He was understandably uncomfortable, but I’ve discovered that I can use that to my advantage. Now, whenever he gives me attitude or refuses to do something, I jokingly say, “Stop being rude or else I will talk to you about sex again!” It’s worked like a charm every time.
photos credit: Roger Wong/INSTARimages, TheNews2/Cover Images, IMAGO/Avalon, Getty
It’s not the point of the story, but I’m furious at the sloppiness of that clinic! You don’t deliver Life!Changing! diagnoses to patients and then be all “oops, our bad”
A friend of mine has twice had doctor’s offices call her with devastating test results (cancer once and a always fatal debilitating disease in another) only to be told later “oh hang on … you’re Priscilla Shana? Not Peregrine Sharnan? Um… Never mind. K? Bye!” Meanwhile she and her husband were terrified, staring down a difficult future for days. Yay that she was fine, but those people carelessly causing people to suffer because they couldn’t bother to read a chart properly is unforgivable, I don’t care how overworked they are.
And to do that to a teen RE pregnancy? Ugh!
Agreed. That clinic should be investigated. Seems very careless and unprofessional.
Not to mention the other person who may have been told they were fine, and then had that rug pulled out from under them a few days later. Horrible!
So when my niblings (nieces and nephews, I’m child-free by choice) were teenage years, I had my version of the sex talk with them. That basically went like this: I don’t care if you have sex. I don’t want to know if you have sex. The best way to avoid pregnancy and disease is to not do it, but if you do, use condoms. I will pay, no questions asked. Just say ‘Aunt Indica, I could use some cash’ and I will put it in a card (I randomly sent them cards anyway) and send it. Just don’t give me any details, okay??